Universities can't shut 'hottie' sites

Two WA universities have received complaints about Facebook sites devoted to campus "confessions" and "hotties" images but say they are powerless to shut them.

Facebook confessions pages set up for each of WA's five universities in recent weeks allow students to anonymously disclose information about things they have done or seen at their institution. Hotties pages allow viewers to submit photos of students with their name and the course they are studying.

Administrators of a University of WA confessions page, established this month, boast that it has the most popular confessions site of all the universities.

One confession directed to "the girl in Reid library at 2am" asks her to refrain from taking off her bra in the library.

Another UWA confession claimed that study rooms at Reid library were a great place to have sex. "Just pick up someone pulling an all-nighter there during exams and you're set," it said.

A "hottie" site for Murdoch University students, which has descriptions such as "known for her banging bod", was slow to remove photos when asked.

Female students commented that they found it "degrading" to have their pictures attached to the page. That site was removed by Facebook on Friday after Murdoch complained it violated community standards.

A UWA spokesman said it was monitoring the sites to see if they breached its code of conduct.

"We have had a number of complaints," he said.

A Murdoch spokeswoman said it was working with one student who had raised concerns, but "while Murdoch is concerned about the pages, these are not Murdoch University-sanctioned Facebook pages and therefore there is very little action the university can take to have information and/or posts removed".

Curtin University's corporate relations and development vice-president Val Raubenheimer said the social media sites were run by students and not aligned to official university websites.