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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."
The effect is to create something like this - an anonymous way for people to let out the aggressions and hatreds that they already had, and are just afraid to announce due to the attempted control of speech in any public, identifiable arena.
Maybe leaving things alone was better? Sacrificing free speech for a better society was the argument. So now what? We're stuck with the bad with none of the good.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
People being shitty is the problem. Don't doctor the symptoms, solve the problem.
I know I'm already old in the eyes of hip young college students, but am I the only one who's never heard of Yik Yak? It sounds like what happens after you eat cheap chinese food on campus.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
Not all speech is protected.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Grow some thicker skin. College campuses these days are worse than your average tumblr feed with all the self styled victims and manufactured offense. If you can't deal with some random anonymous web postings on a chat app noone forces you to use, then you're not cut out for the real world.
Unless people are being forced against their will to use the app I don't see a problem.
Use your god give/naturally evolved/some other explanation free will and don't install the app.
Not in general mind you, but most people who have their name/reputation tied to what they say to others are rarely* inflammatory, belligerent, or insulting because it has social consequences for the speaker. But anonymous speech, where it has no consequences for you and only consequences for a target, is specifically the case where people become assholes.
Now, they may have been assholes all their lives, but anonymous services empower them. Are you really in favor of empowering assholes?
*since many on /. seem so to be pissed all the time, I mean "rarely" in the sense of the number of mean spirited comments compared to all comments made in the world, not the number of mean spirited comments *you* come up with among your friends or when you're pissed at someone/something.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I just downloaded the app. It lets you listen in on various different college campuses in case your area is boring (it is). I did a brief, extremely unscientific survey of a few colleges, and I didn't see anything specifically racist, homophobic or whatever. What I saw was college kids being college kids.
Sure you're going to see a little bit of everything because there's a little bit of everything in society. I didn't see anything too bad, but I'm sure it's there. Political correctness and people trying to censor stuff like this are the problem. This is no different than a local (physical) bulletin board.
Now, where is the daylight savings time article?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
No, they're not. A prostitute will go away.
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.
"Colleges are largely powerless to deal with the havoc Yik Yak is wreaking." This assumes that Yik Yak is wreaking havoc. So far, the article itself does not even give any real example to 'havoc' being wreaked by Yik Yak. This whole article can be summed up by "A new disruptive way of anonymous communication is catching on amongst college students. Naturally, a bunch of Orwellian-type people are worried about their lack of control over it." Further, if any actual violence happens because it was first announced on Yik Yak, it would be no different than if actual violence happened because it was announced via email, Facebook, or someone yelling and screaming it at a crowd.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
I see what you did there... by prefacing something with "to a certain degree" and not specifying that the degree was zero you made an argument which is technically correct but completely fallacious.
In your "you must own a car" example, the difference between slavery and freedom is the part you left out about "You must live there, and you must leave the property" neither of which is a requirement.
See what you are doing is confusing society and culture with the government. It's a common mistake, it also makes it easier to place blame on some one other than yourself and your peers (though the government is also made up of people, like yourself and your peers).
We have a culture that encourages car ownership, but there is nothing forcing you to own one... even if you choose to live on a property that is only accessible by car, you could still have everything delivered, and work remotely or not work at all and have nothing.
Does some one choosing to live on their own a private island lack freedom because they are forced to own a boat or plane to get to the island... it also isn't accessible by bicycle... That private island owner is a slave to the boating and aviation industries!
Or hypothetically lets say I lived in olden times.... the baker has the only oven in town and thus is the only place to get bread, am I a slave to the baker because I need to pay him to get bread? Or is he a slave to the community because they pay him for bread and that allows him to pay for other services he needs access too? Interdependence on other people (what economics is really all about) isn't a form of slavery it's a form of civilization, if you can't tell the difference then I suggest either selling yourself into actual servitude, or trying to live free of interdependence on other people. I think you'll find both much more difficult than simply owning a car.
What in the nine hells is this whining? It's a god damn app on a cell phone!
You want to "prevent the havoc"? Turn the damn app off! The world doesn't owe your delicate sensibilities a damn thing, and not every app must censor that which you may not want to hear.
Is this some kind of joke? Is it an Onion piece? Is it one of those far-far-far-left progressive campaigns again, where everything must be acceptable to everyone, or be literally Hitler and threatened off campus? I cannot make any sense of the accusations here, as it seems to be a completely voluntary situation.
It *is* a virtual community bulletin board. Nothing more. I've yet to see any criticisms of this concept that don't apply equally to message boards in meatspace.
Colleges are largely powerless to deal with the havoc Yik Yak is wreaking.
Huh? A piece of software is wreaking havoc? Wouldn't it be the sociopathic children that attend the school that are creating the havoc?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
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..
That's what you pay them for
The trouble with Yik Yak is that you're hostage to other people's whims, and this app seems to attract people that prefer negativity. I tried a little experiment -- I posted one "funny" comment, one positive comment, and one negative comment. Both the funny and positive comments were quickly down-voted to -5 and removed, whereas the negative comment was up-voted and quickly became the most popular yak in my area. Most of the other top-rated yaks are people moaning about the town, the people, the night life, etc. Usually by the time you see a nice / positive yak it's already at -3 or -4 and when you refresh the list it's gone. I deleted the app.
Oh the irony. If I had mod points if go with funny mr anonymous coward.
They just prove that human being in general when they can hide who they are, turn into horrible monsters.
History repeats, yet nobody learns.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Wen it becomes action the instant response will be to shut down the app allowing the preliminary communication to occur. You know that.
1. Create app that is old wine in a new model
2. Get college kids to use it and possibly say some things others may find offensive or stupid; i.e. get them to act like college kids
3. Get NYT to write article
4. Profit
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Awesome troll, you managed to get a slippery slope, reductio ad hitleram, a reference to terrorism, and an appeal to emotion all in three short paragraphs..
Bingo!
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Here's the harsh reality:
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 credible—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.
So the administration's response was basically, "We cannot protect you if someone is determined to get at you. If you believe the threats are credible, then our best recommendation is for you to leave the campus." And some of them did. I believe they came back after winter break, but still, they missed final exams, and I have no idea how much hassle that's going to cause them in the long run.
Which all means that if you are a person who has a grudge against someone else on campus, and few scruples, you can get them more or less kicked off of campus by issuing an anonymous death threat against them on YikYak.
Is that the kind of "harsh reality" you think is appropriate? Where people who are just trying to get a decent education (and paying a pretty penny for it) can be forced to make the choice between abandoning it, and risking their lives by staying on campus, just because some asshole with an anonymous YikYak account wants them to?
I get the importance of anonymity in free speech, believe me. But free speech is a means to an end, not an end in itself. That end, broadly, is a free society. And society works because bad actors can be called to account for their bad actions. If people can do bad things without threat of consequence, the whole thing starts to fall apart.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
"But Yik Yak's particular design can produce especially harmful consequences"
The consequence that you only thought that "rude" "offensive" "racicist" "*-phobic" people who posted anonymously on the internet only lived far, far away?
It really is amazing how weak and thin skinned people today are. Is the nursery school play ground change "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me" today replaced by "but name will kill me!" ???
i think that youngins that make such comments should be given instructions on why this is not what a young man should be doing before somebody decides to get "his Brother" and finish said prayer.
It all boils down to what Judge does a person want to have??
If anything Internet speech ought to be protected more than everyday street speech because the listener is almost always more than arms-length away from the speaker. No threat of imminent violence with "fighting words."
If someone's making credible threats of mass violence anonymously, how about GETTING A SUBPOENA TO FIND OUT WHO'S DOING IT? It'll take a few hours at most, and you won't have to obliterate the rule of law or work to actively compromise the computer systems of privately-held US companies.
Musg like Slashdot operates. It takes five downvotes.
I once ended up in the same room as a pair of people who had been sending me death threats over the net. It was amazing.
This is back in 2002, when I was the head admin of a major UK-based Counter-Strike league (Barrysworld, for those with long memories of the UK online gaming scene). This is a good way to make enemies - you can never manage something like that without upsetting people and the Counter-Strike community (back then at least) had more than its fair share of immature pricks.
Anyway, there's one particular clan in the league which, towards the end of my first season in charge, is picking up a real reputation for hurling quite nasty abuse at their opponents before, during and after games. After one of my admins passes me screenshots showing some really nasty stuff in-game (vitriolic racist abuse) during their latest match, I throw them out of the league.
This does not sit well with them, particularly as they were in with a shot of winning their divison at the time. There's the inevitable IRC explosion, resulting in a series of quick channel-bans. Then the private messages and e-mails start up. Two of their members do not want to let this drop and, for the next month or so, I get a string of abuse from them. It starts with insults, but when those don't get a response from me, ramps up to threats. They're going to do unspeakable things to me, to my parents, my grandparents, my dog (I don't have a dog, but hey) and so on. And... I ignore it. Actually, no, I have a good laugh at some of it (it's very much in the camp of "a 16 year old's idea of what scary sounds like).
And then I go with my own clan to a big LAN party - one with a whole UK-profile, in a major venue, split over three days. And I meet up there with some of the other people involved in the league. And one of them mentions to me that my two little stalkers are both present at the event.
So I go over. And I introduce myself. And I am lovely and polite. I smile lots. And I remind them, in a "ha ha, isn't this all funny" manner of some of the things they've been saying to me.
I am not physically imposing in any way. Tall, yes. But kinda scrawny as well. I don't think I'd have a clue how to even go about making myself look intimidating. But I've never seen two people look so scared in my life. I think it was just the acute social discomfort I was causing rather than any kind of menace.
It was utterly hilarious. Never heard a squeak from either of them ever again.
Yet Another Knickknack to cause even more attention deficit amongst Young Inexperienced Kids.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
I like the first example in the article. the professors were lecturing about post-apocalyptic culture while the students were anonymously jeering them on yukyuk(my name). There was a book written 60+ years ago exactly about it, 'Lord of the Flies'. Once the veneer of civilization is gone, anything can happen. Sounds like a good episode for Black Mirror.
Victimhood Identity Politics has been worming its way into the academy since the third wave feminists started infiltrating academia in the 60s and 70s. And they were pushing for speech codes even then.
As the UVA Rape Hoax showed, they don't want the police to handle campus cases because that pesky "due process of law" prevents them from punishing males before they've been convicted.
They prefer Star Chambers where the lives of men can be ruined without offering them a chance to fight back. Much better for instituting conformkity and social control to the identitarian agenda.
I think the real debate is not so much about freedom of speech - I would hope that everyone basically agrees with that to a large extent - but rather about anonymous speech. There are times at which this is essential: spilling the beans on a large corporation or a powerful government. However it is inevitably abused by idiots wanting to deliberately upset people for no good reason. Generally I tend to find anonymous speech far, far less interesting and insightful than non-anonymous...except for the odd exceptions which can be extremely important to learn about. What we really need is difficult, anonymous speech so that people are only willing to go to the lengths required for important messages and not just to troll the rest of us.
Like William Gibson says, "The strreet finds its own uses for things".
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
"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."
So if someone issues a death threat, etc. you call the police, they get a subpoena, and track down the idiot who posted it.
Once this happens a few times (in every locality where Yik Yak is used) word gets out not to do that. Or, Yik Yak and law enforcement are overwhelmed with subpoena processing for trolls. If Yik Yak can't process requests fast enough is there some sort of penalty they face? If Yik Yak corporate headquarters are out of state or out of the US, how would such penalties be imposed?
Or, signal to noise ratio gets way too low and the app collapses under the weight of trolls. Or the trolls enjoy trolling each other on it (4chan).
As usual, academia's response when confronted by the ultimate result of their own mores: reflexively play jackbooted fascists. "How can we stop this? How can we control this?"
Free speech is free for everyone, including assholes. That is ALSO including racists, sexists, homophobes, etc. You don't get to define what speech is free.
Look, I personally DON'T believe in unfettered free speech. However, I'm sincerely amused by watching the Academic Left that has stridently insisted for 50 years that pretty much *everything* must be allowed, deeply discomforted when confronted by (human) nature, red in tooth and claw.
-Styopa
Apple requires all "social" apps to incorporate a flag mechanism for malicious content. App providers are supposed to moderate. The Yik Yak iOS app does provide for flagging. So, I am wondering:
1. Is Yik Yak not providing meaningful moderation?
2. Are the receivers of the malicious posts not flagging?
This is what online anonymity promotes: Hatred of women and rape culture.
Yes, we all know it hardly existed before hand. If you really cared about such, you'd have better luck invetisgating the athletics department. If you questioned the actual rapists and actual people promoting and normalizing rape if they post online, if they learned to rape people online, the answer would most likely be no. You also give no real evidence to support your claim. Rape culture is propigated by people who are very much not anonymous, not online, but simply above the rules. People who are too big to jail, popular and "member of the community", which we are unwilling to prosecute. These are the people who commit most of the actual rapes. Example is Bill Cosby, most of the same "leftist" hollywood types where quick to question the accusations against Mr Cosby, and many people quick to dismiss them because he played the loving Mr Huxable on TV 20 years ago. People like him commit most of the rapes. The biggest reason why we can't deal with rape culture is because some of its biggest supporters are women calling themselves feminists.
Speaking of online anonyimitty, I am logged in and you are not. The irony is both hillarious and glaring.
Yik Yak isn't a valid comparison to the rest of the Internet, because it is only anonymous. It is the smartphone app for /b/, and it comes with the same issues.
If they want to change the app to something that has a persistent ID, then there is all sorts of methods to start weeding out assholes. The moment they do that, though, it stops being completely anonymous and starts becoming just a localized version of Twitter.
Even this site relies on pseudonyms to maintain some level of reputation. Anonymous posts have no reputation, no history of being a productive or disruptive member. The idea of being able to be completely anonymous requires acceptance that some will misuse it. Either embrace it or stay away from it, because there simply is no way to "fix" it without changing it into something else entirely.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Your right to free speech is protected but your right to make your comments anonymously is not. Colleges (and society) should insist that all yik yak comments be attributed to their source. If the source of yik yaks is not identified, they can be banned. An anonymous commenter has no legal standing to bring a complaint about his or her free speech right being infringed. You don't have a 'right' to write anonymous letters to your campus newspaper editor that attack someone. You don't have the right to wear a mask while you walk around campus verbally attacking ethnic groups. This yik yak problem seems like an easy thing to fix.
American Universities and faculty:
1) spend the last 50 years attacking, contravening, and destroying every norm, convention, and social more.
2) get upset when their social mores are violated.
-Styopa
There are obvious public safety concerns. It has already been established through the courts that people do not have the right of free speech to shout "fire" in a crowded theater. If Yik Yak is being used to promote illegal activity then ban it. Last time I checked gang rape is against the law.
Yes but :
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.
Tu put is simply, it's just the school administrations that are unhappy because they can't do as they please. If it is against the law, it is a job for the police, who have the right to uncover users identity.
The real problem here is that Yik Yak is just a stupid name for anything. I wouldn't use anything called Yik Yak.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
There are lots of disturbing things out there on the Internet. I'm not sure why an app that appeals to mostly college kids who spew random comments and overall trash on it, is being targeted instead of other awful material on the Internet.
They won't respond without a subpoena. So what? That's actually a reasonable position. Subpoena them. If somebody is being threatening to the point where it should not be permitted in our society, then you go after the threatening person using the law.
Welcome to having a social contract. I know it's easier to have knee-jerk reactions than it is to use due process. But that's also how lynch mobs existed. I'd much rather require the subpoena.
there are jodel and jaulen, now yikyak ... no new concept.
yep. Death threats and bomb threats on the internet are bullshit so often that literally anything in your home is more likely to murder you than some punk on the internet.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The stupid lameness filter is triggering for this post for no reason. If people can tell me what the algorithm has a problem with I would appreciate it. The error is very unhelpful and vague.
I posted my actual post to postbin which is what I do when slashdot decides it wants to be retarded.
http://pastebin.com/v4ApP6H2
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I would. The current construction doesn't stop racism/whateverism you choose and moreover denies us the knowledge of who is who.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Just a more local application of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. No surprises here.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/co...
- Holy crap, I've got MOD points! Who thought that was a good idea.