A public high school in Massachusetts was evacuated in April 2014 because anonymous threats were made via Yik Yak, the most recent trend of social media to hit the app store.
Schools in Chicago, Connecticut and California have also experienced similar disruptions due to the app, including shooting threats.
Tyler Droll, founder and CEO of Yik Yak, said the app was designed to be like a “city’s central plaza or campus bulletin board.”
Yik Yak is simple. Users anonymously post their thoughts to the app, or “yak,” where other users can vote it up or down. The app was originally designed for college campuses and is driven by the location services on phones. Oklahoma Christian University students, for example, are able to see “yaks” from Oklahoma Christian and the University of Central Oklahoma.
“Yik Yak users interact with everyone around them,” Droll said.
According to ABC News, “Yik Yak works like an anonymous billboard, displaying messages from people in a user’s area that can be voted up or down on the page.”
According to Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team, the new Yik Yak app is the most dangerous form of social media out there.
“Anyone using Yik Yak can turn a school into a virtual chat room where everyone can post his or her comments, anonymously,” Ablow said in a Fox News article. “If a student writes, ‘Susie has an STD,’ there’s no way to know if the ‘yak’ is true. But hundreds of other students may see the electronic message, leaving it to the target to defend herself.”
I first heard about Yik Yak two weeks ago while eating dinner with some friends. They were freaking out over something some anonymous user had posted on the app that negatively represented our campus.
I am completely against getting involved with the app. I personally downloaded it for the writing of this column and immediately deleted it afterward.
While scrolling through Yik Yak, I quickly came across posts that attacked social service clubs, individual students, professors, Chapel, the cafeteria and almost every area of campus life.
Some of my friends laugh at the posts. They comment back to insult the original authors, or will vote up on a post in a joking matter.
I, however, see nothing amusing about the app. What’s entertaining about someone posting something that can completely humiliate a person or a group of people and not have to worry about anyone finding out that they posted it? Even worse, a student in New York can “yak” that he is going to shoot up a high school and no one will ever find out who said it.
As a society, we rebuke people who hide behind fake Facebook and Twitter accounts, but rejoice in an app that is strictly anonymous.
Reviews on the app store include “Anonymous fun!” “Makes college way more enjoyable!” “Makes the college experience cooler,” “DOWNLOAD THIS APP,” “New favorite app,” amongst other considerably positive reviews.
My review: Shameful.
As Christians we are called to stray away from gossip. Society makes it easy for us to anonymously post about something that we might be upset about, but Jesus encourages us to not be conformed to this world.
The founders of Yik Yak are currently trying to develop ways in which they can control threatening messages, and by using GPS, they will attempt to keep the app away from middle schools and high schools across the country. But it won’t be enough.
Facebook originally began as a website designed specifically for Harvard in 2003, but today it is the most-used form of social media in the world.
In a little over a year, Yik Yak has empowered its movement to join Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram as a social media god. What anonymous post will it take for society to see that Yik Yak is dangerous, reckless and just downright stupid?
Social media should not be a tool for bullying; its concept is to connect the world. As college students, we are social media developers’ main targets for an audience. It’s time we as Christians stand up and resist the temptation to anonymously hate on a person or social club or college campus via social media.
Jake Whiteley is a junior at Oklahoma Christian University and the Opinions Editor of the Talon.
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