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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 current decline in anonyminity isn't driven by government. It's driven by corporate interests, for the sake of more efficient marketing and advertising.
Government and business interests can both oppress people, but in different ways and for different reasons. Sometimes they collude, and then we are screwed.
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 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.