Yik Yak Raises Controversy On College Campuses

HughPickens.com writes Jonathan Mahler writes in the NYT that just as Facebook swept through the dorm rooms of America's college students a decade ago, the social app Yik Yak, which shows anonymous messages from users within a 1.5-mile radius is now taking college campuses by storm. "Think of it as a virtual community bulletin board — or maybe a virtual bathroom wall at the student union," writes Mahler. "It has become the go-to social feed for college students across the country to commiserate about finals, to find a party or to crack a joke about a rival school." While much of the chatter is harmless, some of it is not. "Yik Yak is the Wild West of anonymous social apps," says Danielle Keats Citron. "It is being increasingly used by young people in a really intimidating and destructive way." Since the app's introduction a little more than a year ago, Yik Yak has been used to issue threats of mass violence on more than a dozen college campuses, including the University of North Carolina, Michigan State University and Penn State. Racist, homophobic and misogynist "yaks" have generated controversy at many more, among them Clemson, Emory, Colgate and the University of Texas. At Kenyon College, a "yakker" proposed a gang rape at the school's women's center.

Colleges are largely powerless to deal with the havoc Yik Yak is wreaking. The app's privacy policy prevents schools from identifying users without a subpoena, court order or search warrant, or an emergency request from a law-enforcement official with a compelling claim of imminent harm. Esha Bhandari, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, argues that "banning Yik Yak on campuses might be unconstitutional," especially at public universities or private colleges in California where the so-called Leonard Law protects free speech. She said it would be like banning all bulletin boards in a school just because someone posted a racist comment on one of the boards. In one sense, the problem with Yik Yak is a familiar one. Anyone who has browsed the comments of an Internet post is familiar with the sorts of intolerant, impulsive rhetoric that the cover of anonymity tends to invite. But Yik Yak's particular design can produce especially harmful consequences, its critics say. "It's a problem with the Internet culture in general, but when you add this hyper-local dimension to it, it takes on a more disturbing dimension," says Elias Aboujaoude." "You don't know where the aggression is coming from, but you know it's very close to you."

Comments

Misogyny Enablement

[Anonymous Coward]

. At Kenyon College, a "yakker" proposed a gang rape at the school's women's center.

"It's a problem with the Internet culture in general, but when you add this hyper-local dimension to it, it takes on a more disturbing dimension," says Elias Aboujaoude." "You don't know where the aggression is coming from, but you know it's very close to you."

This is what online anonymity promotes: Hatred of women and rape culture. The developers of this app know, and probably always knew, that their softwarewould be used to harass women and enable misogynistic communication. This is the fear and hatred that anonymity breeds. I have to post on Slashdot as AC because of the reactionary culture AC promotes in these comments. This is the consequence of site owners not responsibly curating their users and seeing this bleed so quickly into real life is terrifying. Are college campuses and public strrets going to be turned into a trip through the dark net for women and minorities?

She said it would be like banning all bulletin boards in a school just because someone posted a racist comment on one of the boards.

Yiki Yak is nothing like a bulletin board. If offenseive words or speech is posted on a bulletin board in a public space, then students who are offended have the ability to simply remove the bile. Unless Yik Yak give this power back to the powerless, they've just created a new hate-mail. You might as well develop an app that broadcasts nazi hate speech onto campus walls.

Yik Yak basically enables domestic college terrorism. Young women and daughters pay enough and work hard enough in college already and society has a responsibility to defend them from harassment and troglodyte troll losers. They, along with the rest of the internet, need to grow up an accept responsibility. It's time to let anonymity go.

Some people shouldn't be allowed on the internet

[Karmashock]

... no not the people trolling, the idiots can't handle trolls. People need to grow up and stop acting like thin skinned children.

Or get the fuck off the internet.

This service requires you actively pay attention to it. If you say something about me on this service, I won't know because I'm not on it. And if I were, I wouldn't give a shit.

I feel like there are three main groups here.

A group of older people that don't really understand the internet.

A group of pity/victim/issues trolls that really just thrive on any situation where they can pretend they're in need of protection.

And basically a lot of people laughing at the first two groups.

Now am I being callus and dismissive of their feelings? Yep. Everyone learns at some point that you can't be a whiny cry baby about everything or you're known as the whiny cry baby. So you toughen up and learn to be more of an adult. Its part of growing up.

Sadly, some people just learn how to more effectively be whiny cry babies. And listening to them and giving them credibility they don't merit merely enables their imature behavior.

Am I saying making death threats online is acceptable behavior? Nope... it is however inevitable. I've been getting death threats for ages.

Want to guess how many of them I took seriously? If you guessed zero then you're on target. I typically dare the little idiots to try it.

Threats on the internet are part of the background radiation of this place. I don't take them seriously because they don't translate into ACTUAL physical harm. The statistics on how many threats on the internet actually lead to any kind of real violence are so inconsequential as to be irrelevant.

Let me be clear, I fear my bathtub is more likely to kill me then anyone on the internet even if I was dumb enough to let them have my address.

Anywho, some pathetic dupe is going to respond that I'm not being appropriately sensitive to asshats complaining about things that won't happen. Allow me to assert even before you say a word that I disagree. I think it is our credence of their unjustified fears and coddling of their immature emotional states that creates this situation.

When someone starts with this sort of nonsense... every part of me cries out to slap them in the face. Not to hurt them. Just to stop them from acting like hysterical children. No, I do not favor hitting children. No I do not favor hitting women. I do however favor slapping people that are of adult age acting like children when they know better.

Grow the fuck up.