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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."
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."
Wow, who is making the argument that we should "sacrifice free speech for a better society"?
The answer is this person, among others: http://www.thecrimson.com/colu...
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I downloaded Yik Yak and used it for about a week. I saw what was going on there.
If you are disturbed by what you see on there, delete the app. Let those idiots spew toxic shit at each other, and you can go on unaware of their ramblings.
Eventually, Yik Yak will die off, and the "problem" is solved.
Or, do you somehow think we can pass some law that will change human nature?
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Anonymity doesn't just empower assholes. It also empowers whistleblowers, people who are afraid to be honest about the powerful because they're weak, people whose ideas may be controversial but still need to be heard, etc.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Actually, yes it is. Censorship can indeed apply even if there is no government action involved. What does not come into play if there is no government action involved is the First Amendment
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I recently downloaded the app and gave it a spin that lasted about two weeks. It's a new spin on a very old concept but it doesn't work well at all.
That 1.5 mile radius is incredibly limiting - if you start a conversation at home you can't participate in it once you get to work. The anonymous comments are filled with so much bitching and whining of spoiled brats it really makes me resent the student body at my local university. There's a huge amount of group-think that's baked into the app itself - say something unpopular and earn just a few downvotes and Yik Yak will delete your comment forever. That's when it's not losing your comments to begin with: that crappy service lost nearly 20% of my comments, but continued to alert me for updates to conversations that have completely disappeared.
TL;DR - Yik Yak is a gimmick and a poorly made one at that.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Anonymity is not the problem. And it doesn't empower assholes. For such people, it allows them to vent their issues and opinions. The alternative is to let them fester and feed on itself till either the usual destruction of the individual or the rare out lash against society through murder or bombing or joining slightly like minded individuals. Individuals who grow in strength with their numbers and common causes and lash out against [from their view point] an oppressive society.
Anonymity actually empowers society to see the underlying issues within when they are small and addressable (Slashdot Beta anyone). The alternative is to go about our lives as if everything is perfect cause everything has conformed to be just like everyone else. Eventually the hidden issues get too large to be ignored or addressed and we end up paying for it. At the same time we learn very little cause we erased all the signs and are unable to prevent them in the future.
We shouldn't throw away anonymity just cause the messages we see ruin our picture of a perfect society or hurt our feelings. We should address the problems rather than shoot the messenger.
On the campus I work for, there have been death threats posted on YikYak. Are they credible? There's no way to know. Because we don't know who's sending them. So they have to be treated as credibleâ"and the university simply doesn't have the resources to provide even one person with 24/7 protection, let alone the half-dozen or so that the death threats were issued against.
Dude, that is completely the wrong way to deal with this.
In most jurisdictions, it is a crime to make death threats.
The target of the death threat should report it to police. The police will investigate and get a court order for yikyak to produce the info they have about who made the threat (device, ip address, etc).
Then the police track them down & slap them with handcuffs.
Threats of violence are not covered.
Threats of violence are absolutely covered, if a reasonable person would not take the threat seriously. That's the part the speech-banners and fascists keep forgetting. It would be difficult to release a violent work of fiction otherwise (or would you like to ban those too? video games too maybe?).
We seriously need to stop being so scared all the time. That is the root of all this growing totalitarianism. Simple fear and cowardice.
I saw a very attractive woman at breakfast this morning. In that definition I self-censored myself from trying to engage in sex with her.
I saw one too, and did have sex with her! Dating is fun. But we were talking about free speech - you have to be on the kooky end of the left to conflate speech with rape, which I guess is what you meant?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
YikYak runs off phones or via Chrome if you take the time to run YikYak as a package (or whatever the term is) for Chrome. If the device is connected to the school's wifi, they ought be able to get the log-in associated with that IP address at the time of posting, which YikYak stores and readily provides in the case of police investigations.
The campus I work for has basically taken a much more aggressive position on YikYak and we monitor it...as we remember to. YikYak itself is such a pain in the ass and most of the time it's just students bantering like students (I almost wrote idiots, but given how I was in university, I'm in no position to judge). Most of it is complaints and asking where the next party is.
Funny enough, YikYak's moderation system actually makes it really hard to deal with the threats that do pop-up because they get removed after 5 downvotes, meaning it's hard for us to find them before the students remove the threats. We effectively cannot take action despite wanting to. I wouldn't expect the YikYak folk to spend time contacting schools where the threats are occurring, but I hope that they log it well enough to allow institutions to take action if they feel that any one student is consistently using the service to post threats.