Who Spewed That Abuse? Anonymous Yik Yak App Isn’t Telling
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Either way, it would be very disturbing to see a company give out customer information without a warrant or similar, wouldn't it? Especially if the customer is a minor.
We're talking about a medium which mixes the two (and more), creating a very ill outcome (writing about group rape is no joke, and I'm sure that's not an exceptional case).
> Either way, it would be very disturbing to see a company give out customer information without a warrant or similar, wouldn't it?
This is not correct. From the article:
"A student who felt that he or she had been the target of an attack on Yik Yak could theoretically pursue defamation charges and subpoena the company to find out who had written the post."
> [...] creating a very ill outcome (writing about group rape is no joke [...]
> This is not correct.
> The federal Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq.,
> restricts Yik Yak’s disclosure of user account information without
> the lawful consent of the account holder or unless authorized by a
> properly issued warrant, court order, or subpoena.
We're not talking about better education, right? Not building/using apps like Yik Yak?
[1]: http://support.yikyakapp.com/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored_Communications_Act
Second, it seems like this could be easily fixed without compromising anonymity, using standard moderation techniques. And Yik Yak can in theory do even better than an online discussion board - acquiring a new phone number is much higher cost than creating a new online account.
In fact, this feature could enable Yik Yak to be one of the better online communities, since effective moderation is actually possible while still maintaining anonymity.
Not really. Apps like Burner let you get a temporary phone number for $3-4 (well, that is still a higher cost, but makes switching around more or less trivial)
> Not really.
That is a much higher cost. The conversation around microtransactions is in large part about the cognitive load of having to pay for each action, and something as high as $3-4 is significantly more. I can't imagine that wouldn't deter large numbers of casual bullies, and I can't see that not having a significant effect on bullying in general.
Theory: The same way that Yik Yak punishes competitor spam by incrementally lowering the score until it's modded out of existence, it detects human names in posts and applies the same punishment in an attempt to prevent bullying.
Don't you WANT to know that there are biggots out there so you can actually address the problem!??!
Ostriches, ostriches everywhere.
Being offensive towards somebody, in isolation, is "normal", but in the context of a group of peers, imitation can fuel a chain reaction, which turns individual offense to group aggression. Obviously we're talking about verbal aggression, but when somebody writes about gang rape, then it's serious business even if it's not real.
There is a significant difference between "airing thoughts" and cyberbullying.
Those are not necessarily "agreed thoughts"; in the context, they can be seen as "lack" of thought, that is, groupthink of people who has little to do with their minds in a certain moment.
Selling a gun is one thing. Putting a gun in a public place with a sign with written "use me" is a very different thing. In the same way, internet comments are already used to channel anger because of their anonymity; if a medium adds groupthink and proximity to anonymity, things develop on a different level.
That people can be affected by words that people write about them and feel bad as a result is sort of taken for granted (I usually go on a rant at this point about how insane I find it that people willingly grant others power over their feelings but that doesn't usually go over well). The fact that someone can now hear what other people are saying about them is the least of the problems. Spreading rumors behind someone's back can be far more damaging not only to the individual but also to the community as a whole. The fact that anonymity lowers the threshold for public expression of thoughts means that things that were previously aired in private in closed circles are now visible.
From the perspective of someone who cares about their community the fact that I can now see hateful behavior is critical for taking action to prevent REAL harm that can arise from group think. The fact that people are far more likely to agree with something (eg by voting) than actually state it themselves does exacerbate this problem, but upvoting of hurtful comments is a community problem and reveals that something fundamental has broken down in that community and needs to be addressed at the level of the community. I would even argue that it is worse than thoughtless or unthinking: it is habitual, and that makes it even harder to combat.
As a final note hateful speech is something that you don't only want to address when someone is offended by it. The fact that someone is not bothered by being called names does not mean that the behavior of name calling does not need to be immediately addressed and corrected. Right now the only time this happens is when someone complains which is an absolutely horrible system.
Going online isn't any different. Being obnoxious isn't adding anything to any conversation. No one is getting enlightened. We all know the vast array of bigotry out there. Unless we're under a rock, we're exposed to it daily. The same goes for trolling and other forms of harassment. Civility and careful thought are cornerstones of debate and viewpoint sharing.
Comments made on Yik Yak also was a big motivator for a series of protests on my campus around the time of the Ferguson protests, which is unusual for a socially conservative campus with little social activism.
I know that can be hard, and comments can be hurtful. But unless the internet changes in a fundamental way, we have to learn not to take attacks from strangers personally.
Unless of course you happen to know who does it. You can also try changing the culture, but that's hard on the scale of a college.
Might just give it a go...
The problem is that 20-somethings don't have the required gray matter to foresee the consequences of their actions and by many definitions they're not even fully realized humans yet. I attribute this trend of throwing money at such individuals to the geniuses in SV like PG, a16z, etc. It turns out you don't need fully realized humans to do a random walk among shitty ideas to see if one of them sticks. Evolutionary tactics will do it for you.
Just because the awful-ness isn't normally shouted into a megaphone, doesn't mean it's not there. My high school shortened the lunch break because of how horrible the girls were being to each-other when they had free time. Not effective of course.
I'm sure you've heard the old expression, "No publicity is bad publicity." There's some truth to that, especially when your business or brand kinda-sorta benefits from being seen as edgy or controversial.
A little misleading; to be clear, there are no image posts on Yik Yak.
"visually descriptive or figurative language"