Yik Yak, After Complaints From Schools, Suspends Its Service In Chicago 167
The Chicago Tribune reports that Yik Yak, a mobile app that can (among other things) be used for anonymous communications, has drawn complaints from several local schools, who are unhappy that students can use it to bully or pester others.
"'The problem, as you might imagine, is that the anonymity is empowering certain individuals to post comments about others that are hurtful, harassing and sometimes quite disturbing,' Joseph Ruggiero, head of the Upper School at Francis W. Parker School in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, wrote in an email to parents last week. ... In light of the controversy, Yik Yak's co-founder said the company was disabling the app in the Chicago area and will attempt to specifically prevent it from being used on high school or middle school grounds."
Help, I'm being harrassed on an app on my phone! (Score:5, Insightful)
If only there was some way to prevent people from harassing me on this app. I could uninstall it, or just not use it - naw we'll just pressure the company to disable it in my whole area.
Next up: Paper and Scotch Tape (Score:0, Insightful)
Time to prohibit paper, pencils and Scotch Tape. Because someone could tape a hurtful note to your locker.
And of course we all know that it's impossible to obtain a new email account anonymously, with which one can send hurtful emails.
While we're at it, we have to ban chalk because someone could write an insult on the sidewalk.
Re:Help, I'm being harrassed on an app on my phone (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Help, I'm being harrassed on an app on my phone (Score:5, Insightful)
If only there was some way to prevent people from harassing me on this app. I could uninstall it, or just not use it - naw we'll just pressure the company to disable it in my whole area.
And when the whole school is abuzz about how you supposedly raped someone behind the gym last Friday, or fucked Mrs. Fingerwood, or like to use your phone to surreptitiously record other dudes in the locker room, or that someone is planning on stabbing you during the lunch period, or whatever... ignoring the app does what for you, exactly? There's plenty of room for debate about how to deal with the issue, but what happens in the app doesn't stay confined to the app so your specific argument is bogus, +5 insightful or not.
Re:Goodbye Anonymous Cowards (Score:4, Insightful)
It also makes the quality of the comments worse (trivial, inane garbage), doesn't actually fix the 'problem' (it's not even a problem to begin with), and allows for easy tracking. What a great idea.
Re:Help, I'm being harrassed on an app on my phone (Score:2, Insightful)
All those sorts of rumors were common in my high school (pre mobile phone), phones have nothing at all to do with it. And nothing ever came of the rumors - gossip was fun, but no one really took it seriously (and in my school, most of the rumors were true).
Did some precious perfect snowflake get his wittle feelers hurt? Maybe it's time to grow up. Has the new generation somehow lost the natural skepticism towards anonymous rumors? Somehow I doubt it.
Re:Help, I'm being harrassed on an app on my phone (Score:5, Insightful)
Did some precious perfect snowflake get his wittle feelers hurt? Maybe it's time to grow up. Has the new generation somehow lost the natural skepticism towards anonymous rumors? Somehow I doubt it.
Yes. And they've been teaching kids in the last 15-ish years that "thin skinned" is the only way to be. Don't stand up to bullies, don't defend yourself, let the authorities handle it for you. Oh and of course if you do stand up to defend yourself, it's all your fault automatically no matter what. Because "zero tolerance."
Re:Windy City is MURDER CAPITAL of the world (Score:4, Insightful)
But the problem with Chicago is the causes of violent crime are fairly obvious and relatively easily remedied, but local politics are so horrible the governments in almost total gridlock. Combine that with rampant corruption, that's willful and obvious and you have a real problem.
Re:Help, I'm being harrassed on an app on my phone (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe that's the problem. The schools don't like evidence that bullying is going on there.
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, it's complete insanity.
We are working on raising the second generation of "learned helplessness" at this point.
Try going to a PTA meeting and watching a 40 or 50 year old parent try to talk to a 21 year old mother who was taught never to defend, never to stand up, and never to admit that good people can make terrible mistakes. She's literally incapable of common sense, and the older generation is literally incapable of reaching her.
"Zero tolerance" is killing our whole culture, one child at a time.
Re:Help, I'm being harrassed on an app on my phone (Score:5, Insightful)
gossip was fun, but no one really took it seriously
I remember taking it seriously --- as the victim of harassment and I remember others being hurt.
Did some precious perfect snowflake get his wittle feelers hurt?
This is the language of harassment --- belittling the victim --- and I have never heard it used in any other way.
Re:Windy City is MURDER CAPITAL of the world (Score:2, Insightful)
What about all the low-murder-rate cities where guns are banned? Seems it might not actually be so obvious at all once you switch from partisan sound bites to statistics...
Re:Windy City is MURDER CAPITAL of the world (Score:5, Insightful)
It has certainly seemed to have - how many attempted massacres have been stopped because somebody in the audience shot the attacker before they could do much damage? I know there was at least one just in in the wake of the Colorado "batman shooting", but you never hear about them because they a couple people getting shot doesn't rank up there like a massacre.
Re:Windy City is MURDER CAPITAL of the world (Score:2, Insightful)
If they are not in USA, then too many other variables are at play to make a conclusive statement. USA is very much an outlier among Western countries on so many things.
If they are in USA, can you name them?
Re:Windy City is MURDER CAPITAL of the world (Score:5, Insightful)
If I am in a place where I know someone MIGHT be packing heat, I MIGHT be less likely to shoot up the place. The argument makes sense when you look at the fact that damn near all mass murders happen in gun free zones when we are speaking about the USA