Yik Yak
Yik Yak is a social media application that emerged in the 2010s, allowing users to anonymously share posts, known as "yaks," visible to others within a five-mile radius. Designed by college students Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington, Yik Yak quickly gained popularity, particularly among high school and college users in the United States. The app's character limit for posts is 200, and users can interact by upvoting or downvoting content, as well as reporting offensive material. However, Yik Yak has faced significant criticism for being a platform for cyberbullying and harmful behaviors, leading to its shutdown in 2017. It was relaunched in 2021, but it struggled to regain its former user base. In 2023, Yik Yak was acquired by Sidechat, another anonymous platform targeting similar demographics. Despite the introduction of safety features, concerns regarding its potential for misuse remain prevalent. The app's history highlights the balance between anonymity and accountability in online interactions.
Yik Yak
Yik Yak was a popular social media application in the 2010s that allowed users to anonymously post statements that could be seen by other users within a five-mile radius. The application, or app, is similar to X (formerly Twitter), another popular social media service. Yik Yak was particularly popular among students in the United States. However, the app has been associated with cyberbullying and other harmful acts. After being shut down in 2017, it was relaunched in 2021, but it never regained its former popularity.
Corporate History
Yik Yak was developed by Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington in 2013. When they developed the app, Droll and Buffington were both students at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. The college friends eventually created the company Yik Yak LLC, which managed the app. Droll and Buffington launched the app in November 2013. The company quickly raised millions of dollars in venture capital funding, and grew popular among users. In 2017, however, the app was shut down due to reports of cyberbullying and racism. In 2021, Yik Yak was relaunched, and in March 2023, the company was purchased by Sidechat, another similar anonymous hyperlocal platform. Both continued to be marketed to college students.
How It Works
A Yik Yak user can make posts—called yaks—for other users in the vicinity to see. Yaks are limited to 200 characters in length. This limit was once greater than that of X posts, called tweets, which were initially limited to 140 characters, although X has since been expanded to 280 characters on standard accounts. Many of the posts on Yik Yak are cheerful and humorous. They often contain a joke or a pop culture reference. To ensure that yaks are current, they expire after 100 days. Once a yak is posted, other users can reply to it. A posting can also be upvoted (voted in favor of) or downvoted (voted against) by other users. Furthermore, another user can report a yak as being offensive. The posting is removed if two or more users report an offensive yak. If a user continually has their postings downvoted or reported as offensive, the user is suspended. Yik Yak also offers users the chance to earn yakarma, or reputation points, if they receive enough upvotes.
Yik Yak also offers a feature called Peek. This feature enables users to read yaks from any college in the United States. However, users cannot reply to or vote on yaks from colleges beyond the five-mile radius of their location.
Popularity
Yik Yak was wildly popular among high school and college students during its peak in the 2010s. The app was used on thousands of college campuses throughout the United States. Yik Yak was originally intended to be a platform for college students to anonymously voice their opinions, but interest in the app quickly spread to the high school population. Yik Yak also worked toward attracting an older demographic and expanding into other countries.
Controversies
Yik Yak has been a controversial app, criticized for being used to carry out harmful acts. In particular, cyberbullying became a problem with the app. Cyberbullying is the use of electronic technology to deliberately harm or harass others. Some individuals used Yik Yak to anonymously bully others. For example, a user might have posted a cruel rumor about a classmate on Yik Yak. Additionally, some users posted threats of violence on Yik Yak, including threats of mass shootings. Examples of cyberbullying and violent threats on Yik Yak were particularly problematic in high schools, and there were instances when high schools were locked down or closed because of threats on Yik Yak. Students who posted such messages faced charges for making terrorist threats. For example, a student in California who posted a threat of a school shooting on Yik Yak faced three felony counts of making a terroristic threat. Students might have thought threats on Yik Yak were untraceable, but they were mistaken. In these past situations and under new guidelines as well, when a serious threat was discovered, Yik Yak joined forces with law enforcement to find the device from which the posting came. This was made possible by using the Global Positioning System, or GPS. Because of cyberbullying and violent threats among high school Yik Yak users, the company blocked the app in most US middle and high schools using geofencing. Geofencing is a software feature that defines geographical boundaries. This meant that Yik Yak could not be used on most middle and high school campuses; instead, it generated a message for the user that it had been disabled at that location. Additionally, the app had a 17+ age rating in app stores, so parents could use the settings on their children's phones to restrict access.
Yik Yak faced more controversy when the company was sued in late 2014. Douglas Warstler, a former classmate of Droll and Buffington, alleged that the cofounders unfairly ousted him from the company. The suit claimed that Warstler was part of a joint partnership between the three classmates, Locus Engineering, which built Yik Yak. According to the suit, Droll and Brooks dissolved Locus Engineering without warning and created Yik Yak LLC, effectively kicking Warstler out of the company. Warstler sought one-third of the company, as well as punitive damages, compensatory damages, and attorney’s fees. The lawsuit was settled in 2016. Still, Yik Yak could not avoid additional controversy, and the app shut down in 2017. It was relaunched in 2021, although it could still not shake accusations of cyberbullying despite new safety features that were put into place. In 2023, Yik Yak was purchased by rival company Sidechat.
Bibliography
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