
A Gossip App Brought My High School to a Halt - jonas21
http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/04/gossip-app-brought-my-high-school-to-a-halt.html
======
pkfrank
I used to run CollegeACB.com, which usurped JuicyCampus.com and was one of the
most popular anonymous college "gossip" sites ever. >20M monthly pageviews and
sparse usage at 500+ schools, intense usage at 100+. I sold the business in
2011.

Yik Yak is heavily protected by the Communications Decency Act, and articles
like this (generally) just serve to fuel the fire. After Time Magazine, Mike
Huckabee, Chronicle of Higher Ed, et. al. tried to draw negative attention to
CollegeACB, it only served to strengthen our brand and broaden our footprint.

One needs to understand that sites / services like these aren't going
anywhere. They'll continue to enjoy legal protection and benefit from the
virality of anonymity and mean-spirited gossip.

One of the most effective forms of dissent I experienced while running
CollegeACB were spoiler-filled-spam. If people started posting Game of Thrones
spoilers and other such content, I'm sure it would affect usage. Creating
petitions, contacting school officials, etc. were totally ineffective, and
almost always just made the promise worse.

I'm not terribly proud of my ownership of that site, though I did try to run
it with something of a conscience: never called for gossip, voluntarily
removed 30,000+ posts, etc. Happy to answer any questions if people are
interested about this space.

~~~
necubi
Hey, Peter. Fellow Wes'12 here. As a student at the most-active school on
CollegeACB (CollegeACB was originally developed as a replacement for a
LiveJournal-based board active at my school), I saw the good and the bad. It
was terrible for some students, who were heaped with anonymous abuse. I was
lucky enough to never face that, but I know others who did and saw the
negative effects of anonymity first hand.

But there was also a lot of good. During a terrifying two days after a student
was shot on campus, it was the only source of information and communication
while we were locked down in our dorms. It also helped build a sense of
community across cliques, even if nobody would admit to reading it.

On the whole, I'm glad the CollegeACB existed. And anonymity is not going
away. With strong moderation and flagging I think the worst impulses can be
tempered.

~~~
towski
Obligatory question: was the student shot by another student?

~~~
pkfrank
No. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/08/stephen-morgan-
wesl...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/08/stephen-morgan-wesleyan-
s_n_200254.html)

------
sciguy77
My problem with Yik Yak isn't that its anonymous, its that I cannot conceive
of a way that it could be used to do anything but hurt people. I read an
interview with one of the founders who described a story of how Yik Yak was
used for good. A user needed a place to stay and another user offered a spot
on his dorm room floor. The problem with this example is that it breaks the
design of Yik Yak: in order for this "good" example to occur the users had to
give up their anonymity, effectively ruining the point of the app.

Last month I visited a new city and was curious to see what their Yik Yak was
like. It was essentially a stream of abusive posts like those featured in the
article. While refreshing the app I saw a glimmer of hope. Someone wrote "X is
a really nice guy." The post was down voted to invisibility in literally less
than two minutes.

I have my beliefs about the importance of freedom of speech and safe,
anonymous places for whistleblowers etc. But this is something else. It makes
my stomach churn. I'm readily admit that I am biased on this issue, I've seen
first hand how much pain this app causes people.

I'm told that at my old high school there is at least one student on suicide
watch who would not be without Yik Yak. Putting aside arguments about freedom,
if taking down an app could save a kid's life then shouldn't we do it? If
Formspring didn't exist then it is very possible that the four minors who
committed suicide in connection to the site[1] might still be alive today.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formspring#Controversies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formspring#Controversies)

EDIT: Keep in mind there is a difference between free speech and hate speech
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech)).
Ditto for libel (ex the article's quoted posts accusing the school principal
of molesting children).

~~~
dublinben
If you're not willing to defend speech you disagree with, or find repulsive,
then you don't support free speech. Popular and uncontroversial speech doesn't
need any protection, because nobody is trying to ban it.

~~~
lostlogin
Not sure where you live, but a lot of what is quoted in the article would be
libel - is libel allowed as 'free speech' anywhere? The anonimity of users
allows breaking of rules is a bit beyond anything I'd support.

~~~
Taek
I'm not trying to make a blanket case for the acceptability of hate speech or
libel, but I think there are situations where allowing them is useful.

If you are, deep down, a hateful racist, it's better that everyone else is at
least aware. If for the most part you are a nice and reasonable person,
there's a chance you'll be corrected and come to accept the incorrectness of
your beliefs.

On the other side of things, what if everybody does share the opinion that X
comes too close to the sexual harassment line on a frequent basis. It's easy
to imagine that libel would appear on Yik Yak about X. But now X has a big red
flag and is more careful to respect people's boundaries, fearing legal action.

This doesn't cover all cases, and doesn't pardon all libel. But especially
with anonymous comments (it's not a reputable source like The Guardian), a
tool like Yik Yak can help to relieve social tension, or at least bring up
topics that everyone is otherwise too afraid to approach.

~~~
meepmorp
Libel isn't saying disagreeable things, it's knowingly lying about someone in
a public context, such that it causes them harm.

It's not saying that you believe people of ethnicity X are inferior, or that
gay folks and people who don't believe in your god are evil and deserve to
die. It's saying, "John Doe is a child molesting, drug dealing, goat blower
who's gonna steal all the shit from your apartment and tank your startup with
his shitty code."

I can't see where there's value in society in allowing such speech.

------
dkhenry
So kinda like exactly what Community portrayed in their MeowMeowBeanz episode

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3278596/?ref_=tt_ep_ep9](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3278596/?ref_=tt_ep_ep9)

~~~
coffeecodecouch
That's one of my all time favorite episodes because no matter how ridiculous
"MeowMeowBeanz" is portrayed to be, it's totally possible. People will try to
validate creating these apps, but at the end of the day they're profiting from
bullying ("cyber" bullying is redundant these days) and young people's
inability to ignore what's being said about them. It's pathetic.

~~~
dkhenry
Well I think the resolution is the same too. The only way to deal with this
specific issue is to not participate. Implicitly all those people who are
being effected by this are enabling it by participating in the activity.

I actually think this is easier to deal with then its non digital counterpart.
Sure its easier to spread the gossip in a digital forum, but it should be
known to be false. When gossip spreads through physical networks ( and is
therefore not anonymous ) there is a much higher perception of reliability,
and its much harder to shake then a completely unreliable and anonymous post
on a gossip site which is not ever for a second pretending to be accurate

------
wmeredith
How is just ignoring this shit not an option? Am I that far removed from HS
culture at 33? My HS was full of asshole bastards that would say anything
about anybody just to get a reaction.

We didn't have social media, but if a juicy rumor got started it only took
about half a day to spread to the whole school. Hands down the best way to
beat them was to not give a fuck. Just don't feed the trolls. Bullies are
motivated by a reaction and as long as you're not being physically harmed you
shouldn't give them one.

~~~
pswilson14
For fans of This American Life, there was a really good show on a similar
topic a couple weeks ago called Tarred and Feathered
([http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/522/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/522/tarred-and-feathered?act=1#play)).

As a brief summary, the story discusses a man who lives in a small town in the
US. Like many small towns, residents frequent a website called Topics where
gossip is shared anonymously in much the same way that it is on Yik Yak. One
man, whose wife was killed by an ex-husband, ended up on the receiving end of
a stream of particularly vicious rumors and lies spread through the site. This
gossip, posted anonymously by a single person under multiple pseudonyms, ended
up tarnishing his reputation and costing him his job. Keep in mind, this is a
community of grown adults we're talking about.

A high school is similar in many ways to a small town in that everyone knows
everyone else, which facilitates the spread of gossip. Add to that the lower
maturity levels of children and teenagers, and it is easy to see how anonymous
gossip can do some serious damage to a community.

Anyway, I can't recommend that episode of TAL enough, it's very relevant to
this whole topic of anonymous online forums.

~~~
towski
I like how sites like this expose true human nature. It seems like we spend a
lot of time denying it, but we love to pick on the vulnerable.

~~~
EvenThisAcronym
Expose? This is something we all know. It's no secret.

------
sage_joch
This made me realize: Reddit/HN wouldn't be nearly as valuable without
usernames. They allow you to scan someone's posts to see if they have a
history of being mean, intellectually dishonest, etc.

~~~
ewoodrich
Although throwaways are generally considered acceptable, especially on Reddit.
Without some means to enforce single account registration or a real name
policy, the same problem exists.

~~~
L_Rahman
Yes, but I would argue to a lesser degree.

Persistent usernames on Reddit create a culture of identity on the site.
Throwaways with no user history that post inflammatory comments frequently
tend to get called out and downvoted. That's a very different setting from
something like YikYak.

~~~
jamesbritt
_Throwaways with no user history that post inflammatory comments frequently
tend to get called out and downvoted._

Are they not also more prone to being hell-banned?

------
callmeed
I think the Online Disinhibition Effect [1] and Greater Internet F __*wad
Theory should have some kind of multiplier based on age.

Online anonymity–while necessary IMO–has a dark side. You can say "don't blame
the medium" all you want, but I don't think it's that simple. When the medium
increases the volume/frequency of bad behavior, there will be more bad
consequences. Some poor kid will commit suicide because of an app like this.
Being a father of 4, that makes me grieve.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect)

~~~
jqm
so what is your proposed solution?

I read about suicides from internet harassment from time to time.. and
although sad, we don't shut down the internet.

Top poster has it right I believe. Fight it and simply get more attention.
Leave this thing alone and it will be so clogged up with nonsense it will be
almost unreadable in few months...imop.

~~~
callmeed
I don't have a good one off the top of my head.

But you have to understand, school administrators are going to be under
pressure to do something soon. Solutions like spamming such apps with spoilers
aren't going satisfy them (IMO).

These situations are why crappy, overbearing laws get put in place by sixty-
something year old politicians.

~~~
esbranson
The laws needed to fight this have been in place for hundreds and hundreds of
years.

------
jqm
Similar stuff was written on bathroom walls or passed around in notes when I
was in high school...

And everyone had to see it on the wall as opposed to having to be informed
about and go look for it.

The point? this isn't novel and don't blame the medium.

~~~
jqm
What is it with HN lately?

Anyone makes a post and 17 people feel obligated to argue... even if the point
is irrelevant. Very seldom do they even bother to stick around to back up
their arguments.

Now, I know everyone wants to appear smart... but really... this is getting
kind of silly.

~~~
aaronem
> What is it with HN lately?

> Anyone makes a post and 17 people feel obligated to argue

"Forget it, Jake. It's Hacker News."

------
apw
I'm surprised someone hasn't written a Markov Chain-based Yik Yak post
generator.

It would learn all the worst insults at a particular school, then apply them
to the entire student body at random intervals. After a while, nobody could
tell the actual malicious posts from the random posts, so all would be
ignored.

Or so I would hope.

~~~
danieltillett
This is a great idea. Feed enough misdirection into the system and the whole
thing collapses.

------
herokusaki
A truly dystopian monetization strategy for this type of app would be to let
users pay to reveal each other's IP address and/or location (location costs
extra).

Edit: Or worse, enable and encourage bidding wars over whose identity gets
revealed. It may sound obvious when you actually say it but there's a great
potential for evil schemes profiting from "shallow" (not cryptographically
ensured) anonymity.

------
FD3SA
I've said it many times before, but humans are primates. No matter what we say
to the contrary, if we act like primates, look like primates, and have the DNA
of a primate, we are most likely primates.

Why are adults still surprised when they see young primates act normally?
Adult humans spend an incredible amount of time trying to prevent children
from behaving in the ways their natures dictate. Are we so surprised that they
viciously fight to establish a status hierarchy in high school? All primates
do this. Adults do it too, but in a more nuanced way (money, fame, power).

The sooner we start dealing with the reality of what we are, the easier it
will be. The more we deny it and sprinkle it with feel-good nonsense, the
worst it will become.

~~~
junto
While i don't disagree with you, I'd like to share something that recently
struck me.

Although I hated the film Tree of Life, there was a pertinent line that has
resonated with me since.

"The nuns taught us there were two ways through life - the way of nature and
the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow."

"Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten,
disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. … Nature only wants to please itself.
Get others to please it over them. To have its own way."

The penny dropping moment is when you question nature "goodness". Nature is
often perceived to be "the pure way", but we often forget that the pure way
can be brutal and unforgiving. Nature is the route of the shortest path,
highly optimised to survive and flourish often at the cost of others and
without compassion. Grace balances nature.

Some of that is quoted from The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis (see
Book 3, Chapter 54):

[http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/imitation/imb3c51-59.html...](http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/imitation/imb3c51-59.html#RTFToC290)

~~~
FD3SA
This may surprise you, but I absolutely agree. I am very much in favor of a
religious lifestyle. I have come to understand that humans need to feel that
there is a greater purpose for their existence in order to temper their
destructive desires. Of course, this was probably the insight that led to the
creation of the very first religious writings. Our ancestors are not as stupid
as we are led to believe. Religious writings are absolutely the greatest works
of literature known to man, having been so widely preserved and distributed.

However, there is a small issue. I want to live in a religious society whose
morals are practiced, not just preached. I am hard pressed to find such a
society. I have no preference of religion, just a preference for a society
where people are united in a community and behave cooperatively.

Unfortunately, most capitalist democracies do not work in this fashion.
Ruthless competition is the name of the game, and the usurious practices which
reduce most men to beasts of burden are rampant. The elected leaders and their
elite masters sing songs of virtue, yet ruthlessly undermine the common
working man at every step.

What good is the gospel when it is only preached and never practiced?

Addendum: For those interested in the evolutionary history of religious
practices, please see _Darwin 's Cathedral_ [1].

1\. [http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Cathedral-Evolution-
Religion-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Cathedral-Evolution-Religion-
Society/product-reviews/0226901351/ref=dpx_acr_txt?showViewpoints=1)

~~~
junto
We appear to have very similar beliefs and opinions. I reckon we would get on
well!

------
bri3d
Interestingly Yik Yak have geofenced middle and high schools, preventing the
app from being usable _in_ school anymore:

[http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/13/amid-vicious-bullying-
threa...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/13/amid-vicious-bullying-threats-of-
violence-anonymous-social-app-yik-yak-shuts-off-access-to-u-s-middle-high-
school-students/)

------
mynewwork
Why would anyone worry about being anonymously slandered, on a stream of
nothing but anonymous slander?

It seems like it would take about 1 day for this to go from truths and half-
truths to just a contest for who can write the most shocking or offensive
statement. At that point, who cares if it's your name being used on a made up
shock-value joke or story? Any real information would be safely obscured by a
mountain of false accusations.

~~~
yesiamyourdad
Clearly you've never been bullied before. A bully doesn't get bored after a
day, it's a continuing pattern of behavior. I had a kid in high school who
would say degrading things to me on a daily basis, for months, until I finally
realized that I had to get in his face if I wanted it to stop.

~~~
mynewwork
But this app isn't a bully picking on you every day. It's every potential
bully standing behind a curtain yelling non-stop insults against every person
in the school.

Surely it takes most of the sting out of the insult when everyone is getting
continuously insulted anonymously.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
The parent comment bears repeating: "Clearly you've never been bullied
before." You can't logic away emotional pain.

~~~
nsomaru
Can't you? Or to put it another way: in the face of Reason, can the emotion
even remain?

If you rationalise and understand the triviality of the situation and the
ultimate stream of nonsense that the App apparently is, would this affect you?

It seems one would be emotionally affected upon _failure_ to make this
rationalisation.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I'm going to extend my earlier comment to "clearly you've never been
clinically depressed." The attitude that "you've got nothing to be sad about,
rationally speaking, so logic your emotions away and cheer up!" is a factor in
an awful lot of suicides.

------
angersock
Wonderful quote:

 _" Suddenly, the social 1 percent was subject to the same sort of cyber
torment that had in the past been directed at the students at the bottom of
the pyramid."_

I love the way technology brings about democracy and levels the playing field!

:)

~~~
daeken
We tend to think of technology with the "a rising tide raises all boats" line
of thinking, or at least I do. But this is a pretty clear case of technology
dragging everyone down. Yes, it may be an equalizing force, but we don't help
the blind by taking the eyes of those with sight; it's equalization in the
wrong direction.

I wish there was a solution, but there just isn't one. I think it just needs
to run its course; maybe once everyone gets a black eye, they'll realize that
it sucks and stop giving them to others. But I don't think it's quite that
simple.

~~~
dublinben
The solution is to teach young people how to behave properly, and not
denigrate their peers.

~~~
theorique
I don't think it's a lack of _knowledge_ that is the problem here. Almost all
kids are taught the basics of "be nice", "don't be a jerk".

But if someone treats a person badly, and they have the option to get revenge
anonymously ... a lot of people find it hard to resist the temptation to hit
back. _Just this once._

------
bluedino
Where in the hell did we decide phones were okay in schools? In the 90's only
drug dealers carried pagers, or so the school boards thought, so nobody was
allowed to have a later or cell phone on school grounds.

------
gldalmaso
A thought for the school: maybe flood the app with good things about their
students and encourage them to do the same.

A sort of happy uplifting DOS.

~~~
Guvante
I dunno, history has shown that the negative people will win out unless you
filter them out.

Most unfiltered communication channels online are known for being horribly
negative, not to say there isn't positive content, just that it is minor.

Unfortunately the negative posters have more to gain. By putting down someone
they get a minor lift up in their own self-image, while boosting someone does
not provide nearly such a strong reaction.

Adding user names can help, as your history becomes public and scrutinizable,
allowing you to be proud that you are positive.

~~~
Goronmon
_Unfortunately the negative posters have more to gain. By putting down someone
they get a minor lift up in their own self-image, while boosting someone does
not provide nearly such a strong reaction._

I think it has more in common with the phenomenon where in general most
feedback is negative because people who are happy with a product/situation
tend to not bother looking for ways to express that opinion, where people with
a strong negative opinion generally want to find a place they can vent.

------
WalterBright
When I was in grade school, we had the same thing, called "slam books". The
kids would write the same sort of gossip about each other in a notebook, and
the notebook would get passed around. If a teacher caught you with one, you
got punished.

It blazed around for a month or two, then burned out as people just got bored
with it.

~~~
WalterBright
I expect these new gossip apps will follow the same arc. People will
eventually realize that whatever is posted on there is bullshit, and will not
take it seriously.

------
matheist
Write a script to post awful things about everyone.

Then write a script to post nice things about everyone.

~~~
jamesbritt
Indeed. If you cannot stop information, or take it back, then the next option
is to degrade its value.

If a negative comment about is then echoed over and over but with X replaced
with a series of other names then the idea that it's targeted starts to go
away.

------
yan
There was also a great bit on last week's This American Life on anonymous
gossiping on the Internet: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/522/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/522/tarred-and-feathered?act=1)

------
DSMan195276
The fact that something like this exists really shouldn't surprise me this
much, but it's still disgusting. And really, the app itself _isn 't_ a
horrible thing by any means. But, if this was around when I was in High-School
I doubt I would have had a good time. I'm not sure there's much you can do
really, there isn't any way to ban it as a service, nor do I think that's the
best course of action.

The internet can be a truly scary thing, people aren't afraid to say really
hurtful things and lies when they're anonymous. IMO, the Principal's
suggestion of not looking at it, while a decent suggestion, doesn't make tons
of difference when you're walking through the halls and everybody's staring at
you and their phone and quietly laughing.

------
alecsmart1
It's truly a sad case of cyber bullying. I don't see how the school can ban
the app they can probably ban it from their network but most kids would still
be using their cellular data to access the app.

------
Gobiel
If it is anonymous and unfiltered, it is possible to shit-spam it. Write some
server that can find proxies and write random words from dictionaries to fill
up so that it becomes impossible to filter the mean from the nonsense. Gotta
take them by their game ! However, if it grows with too many people that have
the free time to post (ala 4chan) this strategy becomes too difficult. For a
highschool, shouldn't be too difficult ?

Btw, I don't know the specifics of the "app", but it could be done, even, with
basic captcha imo.

------
argumentum
The author of this article is an exceptionally talented writer for a high-
school student. And what she describes below seems like a positive
development:

 _One student told Inklings, the school newspaper, that “kids are just mean
these days, and they needed a new way to insult each other.” Maybe. I remember
when Formspring and Honesty Box infiltrated my middle school hallways. But Yik
Yak felt different. It wasn’t just a new tool for the school’s bullies; it was
also an equalizer. No one was safe, regardless of his or her place on the
social pyramid. Bots and Amigos were targeted just as much, if not more, than
the gays, the fat kids, the nerds, the friendless. “K. sounds like she has a
cock in her mouth 24 /7,” went a typical attack on an Amigo. Staples Guidance
counselor Victoria Capozzi says that one student, prior to finding himself the
target of a homophobic post, was completely unaware that his peers even
questioned his sexuality. Suddenly, the social 1 percent was subject to the
same sort of cyber torment that had in the past been directed at the students
at the bottom of the pyramid. Yik Yak gave everyone a chance to take down
enemies, reveal secrets, or make shit up in order to obliterate reputations.
You didn’t need internet popularity in order for your post to be seen; you
just needed to be within a 1.5-mile radius of your target and your audience._

------
Smudge
It's no surprise that, when left unchecked, teenagers (whose brains actually
lack some capacity for empathy) would generate extremely un-empathetic
content. And it is certainly not limited to children -- adults can be just as
bad or worse.

This is a topic that has come up in different forms many times as the Internet
has grown. One way to reign in the vitriol would be to force everyone to use
their real names (see Google+'s 'real names' policy), but I don't feel this
should _ever_ be a requirement for participation in an online service. For the
service itself to require it is one thing, but if the government ever tried to
enforce this I'd consider it a human rights violation. (The debate over real
names vs. pseudonymity vs. anonymity is a topic I could go into at much
length).

In the case of Yik Yak, rather than shifting blame onto the app, I instead
wonder how/why any parents would allow their children to freely install such
apps on their phones. Sure, kids will be kids (and will always find covert
ways of misbehaving), but there should be some form of supervision available
for parents of smartphone users, don't you think?

I think Louis C.K. has a pretty smart perspective:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c)

------
brazzy
> a school that was “different,” a school that rose above petty high school
> malice.

Almost sounds like petty malice is something that wants to exist and, if kept
away through the most well-meaning efforts, will eventually turn up all the
more virulent.

Could there be some sort of (relatively) safe outlet for such impulses,
something that can be both carthatic enough and somehow contained in its
impact (e.g. available one for one day every month)?

------
stonogo
The app didn't bring the school to a halt; a bunch of assholes did. This is
only marginally different from writing shit on restroom stalls.

------
ledbettj
I was under the impression that Yik Yak had already blocked all highschools
[1] after the last incident (I think it was a bomb threat?)

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-graber/yik-yak-app-
maker...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-graber/yik-yak-app-makers-do-
the_b_5029679.html)

------
ChuckMcM
I expect it would be useful to have such an app that suddenly "unlabelled" and
gave out everyone's identity. The blow back would be pretty huge and it might
make an impression on some of the teens that their outlook was not just wrong,
it was counter productive.

------
esbranson
The modern legal system was made for this.

Subpoena the information from the app creator. Don't know the app creator?
Subpoena the information from the app stores. Can't serve process on (can't
get a hold of) the app creator because he's out of your jurisdiction or
whatever? No problem. Enjoin Apple and Google from providing it in their app
stores. When the app creator's lawyer comes to contest the injunction (to get
their app back), hit him with the subpoena.

"Equity will not suffer a wrong to be without remedy."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law#D...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law#Defamation_per_se)

~~~
angersock
The modern legal system is an authoritarian whimsical piece of garbage.

I'd much rather the kids learn not to be assholes to each other.

~~~
esbranson
I'd much rather be a billionaire.

You can have legal justice or you can have street justice. Yik Yak is an
example of street justice.

------
jqm
Well if it's anonymous there might be a simple solution... Get a list of all
highs school students, write 20 or 30 standard insults and flood the the thing
by script.

Make those who want to read gossip really work to pick it out.

~~~
andrewflnr
Better yet, boring compliments. "X is a nice person". "X helped me with my
groceries".

------
csense
High school students anonymously post mean things about their peers on the
Internet?

Stop the presses!

Seriously, could somebody explain to me why this is front page material?

~~~
dang
The article is fluff and not very appropriate for HN, but the discussion
turned out to be reasonably good.

------
diziet
I looked at the app's reviews to see what folks were talking about:

[https://sensortower.com/ios/us/yik-yak-llc/app/yik-
yak/73099...](https://sensortower.com/ios/us/yik-yak-llc/app/yik-
yak/730992767#review-stats)

"Cyber Bullying", "Bomb Threats", "Hurtful", "Commit Suicide" ...

That seems to be the use case.

------
mattgreenrocks
We are part of the problem. We incentivize creation of net-negative utility
apps like this in the hopes of procuring the ever elusive VC funding (proof
that you've _made_ it). We chant the lie of 'progress' and 'disruption' for
it's own sake. We tolerate a nascent celebrity culture not unlike Hollywood.

What other app-trainwrecks are to come?

------
shirro
Turn it off. Streisand effect again. The more people complain the more people
hop on board and start the insults and the more people who read them. People
need to learn to exercise good judgement and stop blaming technology for
social problems.

------
mykhamill
I wonder if this is what being a telepath would be like. Hearing all the vile
thoughts of everyone in a certain radius. If everyone had the ability would we
develop a sense akin to smell with BO standing for Brain Odour?

------
hvoiiita
I live by a major American university and all Yik Yak is used for is Greek
rivalries ("Sig Eps eat butt") and recording their "tfm"s

------
dsugarman
gossip apps are new but gossip websites did the same thing to college
campuses. for example juicycampus and collegeacb

~~~
waterfowl
Ha I forgot about both of these. Yeah they were pretty vicious. There was some
other app that facilitated anonymous on campus chat with fruit pseudonyms(i.e.
"you are now chatting with Blueberry") but I can't remember what it was.

I was anti shutting them down, even though I think they were mostly posted on
by horrible vindictive people.

------
ryandrake
Can't you just uninstall the app and not worry about what anonymous trolls are
writing in it?

------
jqm
Gee... I didn't realize there was an app that could actually bring school to a
halt. If only they had such a thing in my day...

Does the author maybe mean a bunch of people were gossiping?

I hardly see the alarmist tone as justified. But people need SOMETHING to
write about I suppose.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Events like this do bring schools to a stop. Sure, attendance still happens,
but no educating happens. Other events cause similar results: prom, winning
state in some sport, or lockdowns for various real and imagined threats.

Given that the stated purpose of school is learning[1], things that massively
interfere with that shouldn't be taken lightly.

1\. There are a lot of arguments to be made that this is really a much lower
priority.

------
cube_yellow
It's ludicrous for this to be anything other than hilarious.

Causes: kids are bored, kids are allowed to use cell phones in class (what?),
they've never actually had to take anything seriously, and adults will always
validate their shenanigans by acknowledging it, so: they search for drama, can
get it from social media, "take it seriously" just feeding the drama, and they
get their money shot of the principal and lawyers getting involved.

It's child pornography and the only sick part is the adults who are getting
off to it, but apparently that doesn't matter either so I'm just sitting here
hoping someone doxxes a pair of plots out of whoever this "M." chick is.

