Updated: Sept. 29, 2025 at 7:38 p.m. 

Two years after the anonymous social media app Fizz debuted on campus, students agree the platform has damaged campus discourse and culture, including making it more aggressive at times, but are split on if the app should have increased moderation.

Subjects of Fizz discourse — including a Student Government Association candidate and a first-year running for a Residence Hall Association position — said reading negative posts about themselves was “alarming” and forever damaged their reputations on campus. But over a dozen students said Fizz has become an integral part of their campus experience because it is the only place where students can have open discussions about GW-specific issues, like dorm fire alarms and classes.

Fizz allows students at a university to post content with under 200 characters anonymously or under a pseudonym of their choice, with the option to add GIFs or photos, after they make an account with their university email. Students can also upvote or downvote posts, adding to a user’s “karma” points. Users can add flags, like “Question” or “Crush,” to help categorize posts and comment under posts or “ReFizz” a post — which makes a new post with the original post embedded.

In the past two years, Fizz has been the scene of discourse and discussion on a variety of campus issues, including SGA and RHA elections, as students purse through the slate of candidates for student-elected positions. The app was also the floor for debate following Charlie Kirk’s assassination and throughout the April 2024 pro-Palestinian encampment in University Yard.

First-year student Jack McConnel said since he began posting his second week on campus, he’s risen to the second place of all Fizz users at GW in the last 30 days. He said he first started posting on Fizz to see if people would believe “crazy” rumors or exaggerated stories that he posted. 

To gain this many karma points, McConnel said his posts target specific groups of people that GW students would relate to, like jokes about the Mount Vernon Campus, in order to gain interest and popularity on the app.

“In between classes, I would just go to the bathroom and crank out five in a minute,” McConnel said. “I’ve sort of pushed for volumes. I’ve got 150 posts or something like that.”

McConnel said a back-and-forth banter between him and his friends, mentioning each other’s Thurston Hall room numbers on Fizz, gained traction, leading to students knocking on his door and making TikToks in front of his room after the number was posted. He said the exchange also contributed to his decision to stop posting on the app because it became overwhelming to have multiple students knocking on his door and bothering him in person.

“It definitely is part of the reason why I stopped is because I’m tired of people banging on my door,” McConnel said. “I literally had a week where every night someone would come and knock on my door. I had someone leave a note, slide it under the door, bang really loud and run away.”

SGA presidential candidate Dan Saleem, who ran and lost in 2024 and ran again in 2025 before dropping out of the race, said his friends made him delete the app during the 2024 campaign because they were concerned posts about him would harm his mental health.

He said he’s found out about what students have said about him on Fizz through friends, including an incident on Sept. 11 after conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination that read “Charlie Kirk: yesterday. Dan Saleem: next.” Saleem said he reported the post, and it is currently being investigated by Conflict Education and Student Accountability.

Posts can be reported on Fizz for eight reasons, including bullying or personal attacks, hate speech and spam. One of the Fizz moderators at GW will then be notified of the report, according to the report menu on the app. It is unclear how many moderators Fizz has and if they are students.

“It just shocks me how far people are willing to take things,” Saleem said. “There’s some level of expectation whenever you run for any office, even student government, that you will be spoken about.”

Saleem said during his campaign someone screenshotted a photo of his mother from his personal Instagram account, and a user called her “ugly” in the Fizz post.

“That one really dug deep because my mom’s not running for SGA president,” Saleem said. “My family didn’t ask to be ridiculed for their appearance, for things that just absolutely should not be involved in a campaign.”

When Saleem dropped out of the 2025 SGA presidential race, he cited “virtual and in-person attacks” targeting his friends and others close to him.

He said he believes the problems of Fizz, like hateful rhetoric targeting specific students, will stay as long as the app remains active on campus. 

“I have a very strong belief that if more than half the posts on Fizz could not be posted anonymously, they would not have been posted at all,” Saleem said. 

Kieran Laffey, chairman of the GW College Republicans, said the posts students made in response to Kirk’s assassination were “scary” for the organization, especially those made following a vigil for the conservative activist. He said the anonymity adds a level of negativity to the app, because people do not know who is making disparaging comments about them or their clubs.

In the wake of Kirk’s assassination, students took to Fizz to share their opinions on the conservative activist’s death, including a poll gauging support for the killing. The poll has over 3,000 votes as of Sunday, with 65 percent of voters saying Kirk didn’t deserve to die, while 35 percent, or just over 1,100 voters, say he did.

“Our members hold many similar views as Charlie Kirk, so does that mean, if Charlie Kirk’s death is justified, does killing one of our members mean that’s justified?” Laffey said.

Laffey said students made posts specifically about him and his work with the College Republicans, making it feel like he has a “target” on his back.

“The personally targeting individuals, I think that’s the worst part of all this,” Laffey said.

Alton McLaurin Jr., a first-year who lost the 2025-26 RHA race for Thurston Hall president, said anonymous posts about him on Fizz during his campaign contained deeply personal information about his family and spread misinformation about him.

Students anonymously posted content encouraging others not to vote for McLaurin and how he would make Thurston worse if he were to win the election after students posted about a controversial comment targeting Hispanic people McLaurin made during the GW Summer Academy – Ignite program, a comment McLaurin denied making in a post to his Instagram story, saying that the situation is “more complex” than claims suggested.

“I had no power or jurisdiction to deny or accept them because no matter what, they’re going to be on there,” McLaurin said.

During his campaign, McLaurin said anonymous posts detailed personal information, including that his father faced arrest and fraud charges. He said the posts were “very disgusting” to see, especially because what was shared included his father’s specific past criminal charges by linking to an article that covered his convictions.

“For somebody behind a screen to dig up information about criminal charges against somebody’s father just for a school election,” McLaurin said. “It’s kind of alarming, very alarming.”

McLaurin said there shouldn’t be greater moderation on the app beyond the reporting system that is currently in place, even with the negative impact it had on him because he believes students should be allowed to express themselves freely. 

“Fizz is designed to be anonymous,” McLaurin said. “I think students themselves should hold themselves to a higher standard, have more accountability for their actions and words.” 

Pamela Perderii, a first-year biology major, said she believes certain posts, like the ones targeting McLaurin and negative posts targeting students who live on the Mount Vernon Campus can take a mental toll on the posts’ subjects. She said currently the app’s negative attributes, like the posts targeting specific students, outweigh its positive ones, like the opportunities to share information about student organizations.

“I definitely think that Fizz gives people the freedom to express their opinions,” Perderii said. “But it definitely can come across as mean and rude and targeted towards certain people that may not really be beneficial for the healthy campus community.”

This post has been updated to reflect the following: 

This post has been updated to replace a photo of the Fizz screen that displayed discourse about an organization not mentioned in the piece.