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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.
The trend towards de-anonymizing the Web (and other mobile communications), frankly, sucks. I don't want to sign into Facebook to comment on a Detroit Red Wings news article. I don't want to sign into Google+ to comment on a youtube video (only to have them tell me my name isn't real). I imagine and fear the day when our global unicast IPv6 address is tied to our DNA or some other biometric. Governments don't want us to be anonymous, to communicate without knowing who it is that's sending and who is receiving.
I am Audience.
What I don't get is that with this app there's actual evidence of the bullying that teachers can address. Sure it's "anonymous" but how much does anyone want to bet that there's enough information available that it wouldn't be too difficult to determine who was sending the messages?
I suppose it's just easier for them to sweep the problem under the rug rather than actually bothering to deal with it.
It may be so, but you can see how good it works with being anonymous for the people it should protect when in fact it doesn't because people are jerks when they think they can get away with it.
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's not even on the top fifty cities in the world by murder rate. Thirteenth if you limit it to just US according to this page.
In terms of absolute numbers, yeah, Chicago is quite high. But for the third biggest city in the nation, that's not exactly stunning. It's a purely manufactured crisis, to sell news, to increase spending on law enforcement, to justify gun control.
Francis Parker School in Chicago is where the 1% send their kids. So, there is a substantial number of entitled little turds who have learned from their parents that bullying is one of the perks of being rich and powerful.
It does not surprise me that this has happened at that school.
I have first-hand experience there and far poorer inner city schools, and there is behavior at FP that you would never see in the inner-city school.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What I don't get is that with this app there's actual evidence of the bullying that teachers can address.
Unless these messages are being sent during school hours from school property, I don't see how teachers have any responsibility in the matter. It's private messaging between people and they have their right to speech. If folks are feeling harassed or defamed, maybe the parents of the kids need to work this out or seek the appropriate legal action -- at which point I'm sure someone will bill them $50 to say "just uninstall the damn app".
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...
So someone anonymously said something. It's not like that's never been done before. It's not like that's a new issue in society. Haven't we come up with better ways to deal with this by now?
For instance, I can post anonymously right now on this very platform. How is that wrong?
If schools didn't act so stupidly they wouldn't have to be funded by corporations.
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.
Good luck eliminating every piece of bad behavior the kids can come up with. And good luck to the hothouse flowers when they are pushed out into the real world. This belief that it is a good idea to punish everyone because there are a few bad apples is one of the many things I hated about school, and continue to hate about people who want to apply it everywhere else.
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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.
But the problem with Chicago is the causes of violent crime are fairly obvious and relatively easily remedied, ....
What are these obvious causes and how can they be easily remedied?
(||) Nehmo (||)
The whole point of this app is that it's location-based - it connects you to people in the immediate vicinity. So presumably yes, most of this is happening on school property during school hours. On the other hand, that should make it fairly simple for Yik Yak to use geofencing to disable it on school grounds if a school makes a complaint (from what I gather, this is what they're working on right now).
There's nothing particularly "techy" about kids starting rumors. And removing one messaging app is certainly not going to stop bullying at schools.
It's just a symptom, with dozens of core issues that should be treated instead. From better parenting, to accountability, to a better teacher:student ratio ... plenty of ways to address the problem. Deleting an app really isn't one of them, be it from an single student or an entire school.
This signature is false.
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.
Sorry grandpa, you remembered something right, but you forgot the details. That is for telephone calls. For internet communications, you only have to provide the logs you do have, on request. You do not have to have those logs. But as we know, for example from lavabit, if you don't have logs and the law enforcement agency is high enough on the food chain, they might get a warrant that requires you to give them access to your service instead.
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?
More than 15; at least 35. Of course, "let the authorities handle it for you" was a lie; the authorities would ignore you, punish you, or punish both parties if you did complain to them. Phrases like "it takes two to fight" were their mantra... but if you actually didn't fight back and just got beat up, they'd punish you for fighting anyway.
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