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Comment by antr | Hacker News Reader

I had never heard of Yik Yak until today (and the mentioned competitors). I tried Yik Yak out, 5 minutes after it was deleted.

I can't express how disgusted I am by the contents/comments within the app. It's full of hate speech, insults, sexism, etc. I find really disturbing that these sort of apps get vc money, really disturbing.

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You should know that Yik Yak is an amalgamation of whatever the users say around you... If it's filled with hate speech, that would be your surrounding environments fault and not Yik Yak.

Oh I know, I also tried the "Peek" feature: used for home, work and my university (it was over a decade ago I graduated). It didn't move the needle. Very disturbing.

Btw, I'm in Europe, so all of the comments I saw were in English, as in American English, so I'm guessing us Europeans aren't getting the best of the US. This is not data, just an observation.

> I saw were in English, as in American English

Entirely off-topic, but what English variant is taught in Europe? I'm going to ask a German colleague to spell the word 'colour' I think.

British english. Colour vs color. Lift vs elevator. Single vs one-way. :)

Are you sure? When I was in Germany kids were learning American English. It might vary country to country.

I'm not saying this is 100% the case in every school. The school I went to was British English, for sure other schools teach in American English, as I'm sure there are plenty of Americans teaching around Europe. I'm just talking from experience/observation.

They pick up American english from tv, British english in school. So it's more of a mix ...

I think it depends on the place. And a lot of it is learned outside of school through TV and the internet, which is primarily American English.

Seems to be British vocabulary and spelling, but spoken with an Americanized accent (due to pop culture).

Depends. My teachers (in Germany) all used British English, but allowed both in tests (as long as you stayed somewhat consistent). For people who don't just learn English in school it obviously varies with the different influences and often is a wild mix.

Although the anonymous nature of Yik Yak encourages people to share things they wouldn't normally share in the analog world.

True, but not every area has a lot of users that feel compelled to post things like that, so seeing a lot of hateful content is still a reflection of the people around you.

I tried it in SF (fidi and soma). I didn't find offensive stuff, but I'd actually have been happier if it was /b/ level. Instead it was just... lame? Self references to YikYak seemed to get votes. The top ones were old jokes.

I'm 33 so perhaps I just don't get it anymore.

I haven't tried Yik Yak as it seems like a black hole of drama and ignorance. However, I think it is being used in interesting ways. Students were able to use it to severely disrupt a frivolous and disruptive class requirement. It's potentially very democratizing, though perhaps it's only bringing out the worst aspects of democracy.

http://emutalk.org/2015/01/a-new-faculty-challenge-fending-o...

It's got to be your area. I'm in NYC and have never seen any hate speech in the few times that I've used it.

If you're near a college area the posts get ridiculous. I deleted it pretty quickly.

Couldn't you say the same thing for Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Reddit?

On Facebook and Twitter I've never seen a friend or someone I follow make some disgusting comments like I've seen on Yik Yak, specially the top, upvoted stuff. I never used Tumblr (only when visiting a blog) and only visit Reddit sporadically. So no, I can't say the same.

Try running a search on Twitter--you'll see some nasty stuff, depending on the search term.

Yik Yak is basically just location-based search, so there's no social filtering. (As opposed to on your Twitter feed, where you create a social filter by selecting the accounts you follow).

"It's no worse than tumblr" is quite the damning with faint praise.

Those are the long tail of comments. If VCs judged all user-content services by the long tail of submissions, most wouldn't raise any money.

(I realize that might be a good thing, but I presume then that you have the same complaint against Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9070088

Still, that just means the long tail is worse, which necessarily happens when anonymity is granted. The best comments-- i.e. the ones that make using the app fun for users-- are also uniquely possible on Yik Yak (or services like it).

In my neighborhood, Yik Yak is nothing but a bunch of proclamations about social justice related topics, and people humble-bragging about their sex lives. Yik Yak is only as good as your neighborhood.

I wonder, do you oppose the funding of hosting companies that provide email services, or allow people to run IRC servers? Do you have a blanket opposition against the funding of services which are used to disseminate user-generated content?

I've literally never had that experience with Yik Yak.

There's a report button if anyone makes an explicit threat; other than that, when you hold a mirror up to society, it's not the mirror's fault what's reflected.

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