Gathered information (Social Media)

One of the biggest criticisms of social media sites and applications is their inherent potential

to feed the growing problem of cyber-bullying. Due to the widespread bullying and

harassment committed through Yik Yak, many schools and school districts have taken action

to ban the app. These include several Chicago school districts, Norwich University in

Vermont,Eanes Independent School District in Texas, Lincoln High School district in Rhode

Island, New Richmond School District in Ohio, and Pueblo County School District in

Colorado. Tatum High School in New Mexico banned cell phone use from the school due to

Yik Yak, and the Student Government Association at Emory University in Georgia attempted

to ban the app across campus, but failed to do so after immense backlash from students.

On October 3, 2014, The Huffington Post published an editorial by Ryan Chapin Mach titled

"Why Your College Campus Should Ban Yik Yak," which asserted that Yik Yak's anonymous

messaging boards "are like bathroom stalls without toilets. They're useless, they're sources

of unhelpful or harmful conversations, and they're a complete eyesore."

To remedy the cases of bullying in middle and high schools around the country, Droll and

Buffington amended the application to include geofences that work in the background.

These unseen fences disable the application within their defined borders. At first these

boundaries were installed manually by the developers, but it quickly became clear they

would need outside assistance. They found this assistance in a Vermont based company

known as Maponics. Maponics “builds and defines geographic boundaries.” They happened

to already have nearly 85% of the country’s high schools mapped, making it easy to block

access to Yik Yak in those areas. The fences are currently in effect mainly to disable the app

on all middle and high school grounds throughout the country. If the app is opened within

one of these areas the user is displayed a message along the lines of: “it looks like you’re

trying to use Yik Yak on a middle school or high school grounds. Yik Yak is intended for

people college-aged and above. The app is disabled in this area.”

In December 2014, security researchers discovered and demonstrated a potential attack on

the service, where a Yik Yak user could have their account compromised and be

deanonymised (having their identity revealed) if an attacker was using the same WiFi

network.

In February 2015, Yik Yak was exposed for systematically downvoting and deleting posts

that mention competitors. The automatic system downvotes and deletes any posts that

contain words that are associated with the names for other apps used by university students,

including "fade," "unseen," "erodr," and "sneek." The downvoting algorithm, which assigns

downvotes on regular intervals until the posts are deleted, appears designed to mislead

users to thinking their posts are unpopular with their peers, rather than censored by Yik Yak

itself.

Yik Yak works by combining the technologies of GPS and instant messaging, allowing users

to anonymously microblog to other nearby users. Before loading messages, the Yik Yak app

determines the user's location and groups them into pockets of 5 mile radius zones. Within

these zones, anyone inside the radius can post and read other people's “yaks”. Yik Yak is

effectively an anonymous bulletin board. The developers use a technology called geofencing

to avoid as much cyber-bullying as possible. Geofencing allows certain areas, such as

middle schools and high schools to be ‘fenced’ off using GPS technology. The app will then

be no longer accessible in the fenced off area.

Yik Yak was launched in 2013 after CEO Tyler and COO Brooks graduated from Furman

University. Yik Yak was originally funded by Atlanta Ventures and offices based in the

Atlanta Tech Village, the city's premier start up incubator.[citation needed] As of April 22,

2014, the company announced that it had secured $1.5 million in funding from various

companies such as Vaizra Investments, DCM, Kevin Colleran, and Azure Capital Partners.

This funding came five months after Yik Yak was founded. This funding was intended to

enhance the app, and to increase the amount of users both in the United States and

overseas. On June 30, 2014, a little over two months after the initial $1.5 million, Yik Yak

secured $10 million from its previous investors, along with Renren Lianhe Holdings, and Tim

Draper.

Last March, an app called Yik Yak took over Elizabeth Long's high school, Woodward

Academy, in Atlanta. Students learned about it during first period. By lunchtime, the school

made an announcement: Anyone caught with Yik Yak on their phones would receive

automatic detention.

By the end of the day, Long estimates her fellow students had written thousands of yaks,

short messages posted publicly to other users within a 1.5-mile radius.

A few months before that, Long was hospitalized after she attempted suicide. The 17-year-

old junior was distraught to read yaks that not only mentioned her depression but

encouraged it.

"The app has turned into a haven for bullying, threats, and hate speech, mostly focused on

kids in middle school and high school. I know this, because it happened to me," Long wrote

in her March 2014 petition

The signatures rolled in slowly at first; the campaign gathered only about 100 supporters in

its first month.

"I remember I checked [the petition] before school the first day the emails went out and I had

1,500 signatures," says Long. "By 4th period three or four hours later I had 24,000

signatures." Now the petition has more than 78,000 signatures.