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posted by LaminatorX on Tuesday March 10 2015, @09:32PM   Printer-friendly
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.”

 
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  • (Score: 2, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2015, @10:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2015, @10:53PM (#155781)

    No, SJWs are a distinct group of people, with certain traits specific to them. They're often highly supportive of political correctness, and promote giving advantages to allegedly "disadvantaged" social groups even when doing so causes harm to society as a whole. When they disagree with somebody, they don't just disagree, but they go out of their way to actively suppress anything and everything that they dislike.

    One can disapprove of SJWs without trying to suppress them. Mere disapproval of SJWs does not make one a SJW, too. The GP clearly doesn't agree with SJWs. But the GP isn't trying to prevent SJWs from being able to express the ideas that they wish to express. That means that the GP is missing one of the key components of the SJW philosophy: the unrelenting destruction of anything that they dislike or disagree with.

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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @02:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @02:09AM (#155871)

    No, SJWs are a distinct group of people, with certain traits specific to them.

    As evidenced from "examples" like these, [reddit.com] 'real' SJWs are people who are bigoted against whites, heteros, or men; in other words, bigoted against people who have been discriminating and bigoted against everyone else forever and now these hypocritical, entitled assholes with superiority
    complexes are freaking out because they're finally getting a taste of their own medicine. Call a bigot a bigot, no need to invent a new word for "bigoted against straight/white/males" except for the ability to use it exactly how it is being used, as an ad hominem used solely to label and demonize everyone who disagrees with them.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @04:38AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @04:38AM (#155918)

      So, let me sum up: "I am not a racist because SJW." Is that about it?

      no need to invent a new word for "bigoted against straight/white/males"

      Then what is SJW, besides someone who disagrees with your straight white maleness?