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Yik Yak, After Complaints From Schools, Suspends Its Service In Chicago
The Chicago Tribune reports that Yik Yak, a mobile app that can (among other things) be used for anonymous communications, has drawn complaints from several local schools, who are unhappy that students can use it to bully or pester others.
"'The problem, as you might imagine, is that the anonymity is empowering certain individuals to post comments about others that are hurtful, harassing and sometimes quite disturbing,' Joseph Ruggiero, head of the Upper School at Francis W. Parker School in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, wrote in an email to parents last week. ... In light of the controversy, Yik Yak's co-founder said the company was disabling the app in the Chicago area and will attempt to specifically prevent it from being used on high school or middle school grounds."
If only there was some way to prevent people from harassing me on this app. I could uninstall it, or just not use it - naw we'll just pressure the company to disable it in my whole area.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Time to prohibit paper, pencils and Scotch Tape. Because someone could tape a hurtful note to your locker.
And of course we all know that it's impossible to obtain a new email account anonymously, with which one can send hurtful emails.
While we're at it, we have to ban chalk because someone could write an insult on the sidewalk.
When it comes to schools, and particularly the "How dare you accuse my little angel" parents, you need to do a hell of a lot more than "determine" which student sent it.
If only there was some way to prevent people from harassing me on this app. I could uninstall it, or just not use it - naw we'll just pressure the company to disable it in my whole area.
And when the whole school is abuzz about how you supposedly raped someone behind the gym last Friday, or fucked Mrs. Fingerwood, or like to use your phone to surreptitiously record other dudes in the locker room, or that someone is planning on stabbing you during the lunch period, or whatever... ignoring the app does what for you, exactly? There's plenty of room for debate about how to deal with the issue, but what happens in the app doesn't stay confined to the app so your specific argument is bogus, +5 insightful or not.
It also makes the quality of the comments worse (trivial, inane garbage), doesn't actually fix the 'problem' (it's not even a problem to begin with), and allows for easy tracking. What a great idea.
Thank you Dave Raggett
All those sorts of rumors were common in my high school (pre mobile phone), phones have nothing at all to do with it. And nothing ever came of the rumors - gossip was fun, but no one really took it seriously (and in my school, most of the rumors were true).
Did some precious perfect snowflake get his wittle feelers hurt? Maybe it's time to grow up. Has the new generation somehow lost the natural skepticism towards anonymous rumors? Somehow I doubt it.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Did some precious perfect snowflake get his wittle feelers hurt? Maybe it's time to grow up. Has the new generation somehow lost the natural skepticism towards anonymous rumors? Somehow I doubt it.
Yes. And they've been teaching kids in the last 15-ish years that "thin skinned" is the only way to be. Don't stand up to bullies, don't defend yourself, let the authorities handle it for you. Oh and of course if you do stand up to defend yourself, it's all your fault automatically no matter what. Because "zero tolerance."
Om, nomnomnom...
But the problem with Chicago is the causes of violent crime are fairly obvious and relatively easily remedied, but local politics are so horrible the governments in almost total gridlock. Combine that with rampant corruption, that's willful and obvious and you have a real problem.
Maybe that's the problem. The schools don't like evidence that bullying is going on there.
Yeah, it's complete insanity.
We are working on raising the second generation of "learned helplessness" at this point.
Try going to a PTA meeting and watching a 40 or 50 year old parent try to talk to a 21 year old mother who was taught never to defend, never to stand up, and never to admit that good people can make terrible mistakes. She's literally incapable of common sense, and the older generation is literally incapable of reaching her.
"Zero tolerance" is killing our whole culture, one child at a time.
gossip was fun, but no one really took it seriously
I remember taking it seriously --- as the victim of harassment and I remember others being hurt.
Did some precious perfect snowflake get his wittle feelers hurt?
This is the language of harassment --- belittling the victim --- and I have never heard it used in any other way.
What about all the low-murder-rate cities where guns are banned? Seems it might not actually be so obvious at all once you switch from partisan sound bites to statistics...
It has certainly seemed to have - how many attempted massacres have been stopped because somebody in the audience shot the attacker before they could do much damage? I know there was at least one just in in the wake of the Colorado "batman shooting", but you never hear about them because they a couple people getting shot doesn't rank up there like a massacre.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
If they are not in USA, then too many other variables are at play to make a conclusive statement. USA is very much an outlier among Western countries on so many things.
If they are in USA, can you name them?
I think the argument goes more along like this
If I am in a place where I know someone MIGHT be packing heat, I MIGHT be less likely to shoot up the place. The argument makes sense when you look at the fact that damn near all mass murders happen in gun free zones when we are speaking about the USA
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same