Yikety-Yak... Don't Come Back?

The amount of anonymity that the Internet provides has always been a very liberating quality. The ability to hide behind an IP address, avatar and username further enhances the feeling of anonymity. This idea has made it's way into a currently very popular application called Yik Yak. It is a social networking app that requires no profile to setup and displays messages based on the user's location, rather than "following" or "friending" people to see their posted content. The concept sounds nice: a bulletin board, to see what events are taking place within 1.5 miles of your location. Unfortunately, just like in the Snapchat situation people are exploiting the anonymity of the app. It is sometimes used in offensive contexts, to speak negatively about or threaten others.

An example of this is an incident at Eastern Michigan University, where some of the students "yakked" crude material about the professors during the lecture. One of the professors was so offended by the content, she considered hiring a lawyer. Since Yik Yak is anonymous and the only way to determine who posted the content would be to get permission via a law-binding document, the school did not take any action.

Stupidity and anonymity doesn't mix, either. A recent Yik Yak event at Montclair State University. A student "yakked" that he would "[gun emoji] the school 12:15pm today". Fortunately in this case, authorities were able to track down the culprit and he was assessed 2 years probation and fined 800 dollars to fund the cost of the investigation.

The app's intended audience is university-aged students, due to the fact that they are older and (hopefully) more mature, although there are no age restrictions on Yik Yak; due to this fact, high school and middle school children can download and use Yik Yak. Clearly, if college students can't be responsible on this app, letting middle and high school students use it is a major design flaw.

Although it is terrible to see Yik Yak abused in these ways, the developers of the app have implemented a filtering measure. If a user tries to post a yak with certain keywords, a message pops up, asking the user to think about what he/she is posting before they hit send. Others are lobbying for the app to be banned on school Wi-Fi networks to help curb the usage of Yik Yak; of course, users can always utilize their phone's data connection, and there's always the issue of freedom of speech when “prohibiting” students from a constitutional right. Another option is called “geo-fencing”. In approximately 90% of high and middle schools in Chicago, geo-fences were created such that the application cannot be opened within that fence's radius, regardless of the phone's network capabilities.

The potential for Yik Yak to be a bulletin board for local events and gatherings is there. How it is being abused currently was not in the vision of the Yik Yak developers, and clearly they overestimated the maturity level of the targeted user base. Is Yik Yak a constructive app? Can it be constructive by enhancing security measures, or is the user base not mature enough to police themselves? is it just hot garbage? Being that I've never used the app, I'd like to hear feedback from those who have.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/technology/popular-yik-yak-app-confers-anonymity-and-delivers-abuse.html?ref=technology&_r=0