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from the why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept.
Jonathon Mahler writes in the NYT that in much the same way that 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." And 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.”
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 10 2015, @09:50PM
So this story has been making the rounds and I am curious about Soylent's take. So my question doesn't pertain to Soylent posting it, but to the "news" in general:
How is this news? It just seems odd to me that this got picked up by the media.
A new messaging App gets some Trolls. That certainly hasn't happened to every single thing ever placed on the internet...
Am I crazy to think this is just some viral marketing BS?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2015, @09:55PM
It's news because there's the quasi-anonymous aspect to it. Although online quasi-anonymity is not a new concept, it's a concept that's entirely new to a whole generation of people who were raised under the Facebook/Google+ "real identity" nonsense. They were never exposed to the concept of anonymity during their formative years online, so the existence of it is news to these people.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 10 2015, @10:56PM
It isn't even anonymous due to the fact that YikYak obviously logs a lot of user info. For this app to be done right, there should be no login, no logs, and a server way off in the middle of some country extremely hostile to US interference.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:50AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday March 11 2015, @12:57AM
This is a nice demonstration of how free speech is supposed to work. If it offends you, too bad. If it's illegal, get a warrant. This comes under the category of "I will defend to the death his tight to say it", where the content of this app may be offensive, stupid, or other, but it's free.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2015, @09:56PM
"How is this news?"
It's not
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2015, @09:58PM
Are you saying that Hugh Pickens is gewg?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by LordFrito on Tuesday March 10 2015, @10:34PM
Am I crazy to think this is just some viral marketing BS?
All I know is I keep finding duplicates of Slashdot articles on Soylent, and we all know about how Dice Holdings operates.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2015, @10:40PM
Hugh Pickens (or somebody using the name Hugh Pickens) appears to submit stories to both sites.
Do you have evidence to suggest that Hugh Pickens is associated with Dice? If you do, then you should present it to us. We prefer to deal with facts here, rather than speculation.
(Score: 1) by LordFrito on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:54AM
Let me be clear that was not an accusation of anyone or any post in particular... I usually don't even read the submitter's name. By no means am I associating Hugh Pickens, or anyone else here, with Dice.
The Dice comment was just me venting about a vague general feeling that everywhere I go on the internet I'm being force fed the same articles -- Soylent being no exception unfortunately (sometimes).
Need to be more careful with my words
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mrcoolbp on Wednesday March 11 2015, @04:52AM
We don't check their queue before posting stories and I'm not surprised there's an overlap in submission content. We can't see what they have in the future queue, nor would it affect our editorial decisions. Look at the comment count here, clearly this is at least of some interest to those that hang out here.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 1) by LordFrito on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:57AM
Agreed that the article is of interest, heck I already read it once on the site. Just feels weird lately seeing the same stories pop up everywhere. I'd swear it's happening more often year over year. Then again, maybe I'm just getting old and cratchety.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @01:24AM
It's news because the people most targeted by it are female university students, OUR MOST VICTIMIZED POPULATION.
WON'T SOMEBODY *PLEASE* THINK OF THE GENDER STUDIES MAJORS!?!!!
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Wednesday March 11 2015, @01:50AM
*dons tin-foil hat*
Maybe this is just a smear campaign to raise FUD about online anonymous = bad! to hand-wave away the surveillance/tracking?
I'm just throwing that out as devil's advocate. :-)
It may have just been the article = online!+ online bully app!
Can it be spoofed? How hard is it to hack, crack, or otherwise 'fold, spindle, and mutalate' it?
As for myself, I was just curious what all the hoopla was about.
That was my mistake...another 'Hugh Pickens' masterpiece.
Asshattery, assclowns, and trolls online...on a campus near you! News at 11!
Meh. Anyone that hasn't figured out that freedom of speech isn't always pleasant/agreeable from their POV, deserves to be surprised.
Welcome to humanity. Once you crawl out of mom's basement into the rest of the world, you actually get to interact with these same types!
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Wednesday March 11 2015, @02:47PM
Nice piece of devil's advocate actually - good thing to keep an eye on, well thought that man.
Due to the app's popularity in schools, I think it was probably inevitable that some harassment would take place and some parents/teachers/whoever would blame the app rather than the people who did it. Arbitrary bans on anything by any authority tends to make news, especially thanks to the OMG-pointless-censorship-online-by-naive-idiots angle.
I remember being bullied at school 20 years ago. At least I knew I was out of their sphere of influence at home, at a mate's place, any place that wasn't school. These days, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to be a socially active school kid without creating conduits for asshats to harass you 24/7. I get the whole "if you don't like it, don't use it" angle, but many kids would equate that with committing social suicide and condemning themselves to being an outsider who's always one step behind the in-crowd for the rest of their school careers. Remember how long that felt when you were a kid in school? Now imagine that length of time as a social outcast - I know exactly what that feels like, as I imagine do a number of the people reading this.