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# responding
UCD journalist defends report after investigation dismissing 'revenge porn' allegations
The university stated yesterday evening that the allegations were unsubstantiated.
THE STUDENT JOURNALIST who wrote the article about a private Facebook ‘revenge porn’ group has defended his story, following an investigation by the university dismissing the allegations.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Marian Finucane show, Jack Power, politics and innovation editor with the College Tribune, said: “I absolutely stand over my story.”
He went on to say that there would have been restrictions for the university in carrying out their investigation.
On the investigation, while I completely welcome [it], the only way this investigation would have gotten into the group would be if a student from the group would have come forward and would have allowed the university into the group despite his own or her own expulsion being threatened.
UCD have not said whether or not this would have been the case.
In a statement yesterday evening, the college registrar Professor Mark Rogers said that the accusations had not been upheld.
It was found that the evidence in the initial article had been based on “hearsay from anonymous comments on (social media website) Yik Yak”.
Also that no students had came forward to university services seeking help in connection with the alleged incidents.
Rogers went on to say that he was “not so naïve as to believe that the university community is immune to this type of activity”.
The original story was based on a number of anonymous accounts of the group, and stated that it had not gained access to the Facebook messenger chat concerned.
