The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak

#21

Post by nothis » Sat, May 27, 2017, 2:13 PM UTC

daveguy wrote: post #7

skywhopper wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is, could anyone else raise enough money to get something like this started again after what Yik Yak became? VC funds likely won't want to touch something like Yik Yak for a while. At the very least a platform that so visibly enables anonymous coordination of harassment is unlikely to attract the advertisers or sponsors they would need to become profitable.

Is it possible to make an open source peer to peer version? Seems like something along the lines of ipfs or dat would be a good substrate. Is it open source feasible in walled gardens like apple or google app stores? With respect to dev costs, permissions, tooling?

I honestly thought that was the whole idea behind it. I think an app like this could be run for cheap, it's essentially a P2P messaging app.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak

#22

Post by sikosmurf » Sat, May 27, 2017, 2:17 PM UTC

nothis wrote: post #19

qmarchi wrote: post #16

Honestly, I don't get all the complaining from harassment. We live in a digital age where we can control a large amount of our information stream. If we don't like something, we just turn off the stream. It's like left-wing advocates and Fox. They don't like it, so they don't watch it. If you don't like what people are posting on some service, remove the service, inform people you know that you don't care about what'…

The article is pretty specific. First of all, it talks about school kids who you can't really tell to "be rational about it". Secondly, if you turn off your phone but people still organize multimedia mass-harassment behind your back, "turning off your phone" doesn't change shit.

A third point is that "turn off your phone" is incredibly dismissive. A person shouldn't have to live without the Internet due to the actions of one, two, or twenty individuals.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak

#23

Post by simonw » Sat, May 27, 2017, 2:17 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #11

mokash wrote: post #6

What ruined Yik Yak for me was making the geographical areas larger so my University's 'herd' included surrounding cities too. Too much noise. This compounded with the removal of anonymity led to me deleting the application. Wonder if it is possible to run an app like this at cost somehow.

> Wonder if it is possible to run an app like this at cost somehow. Given that it's just an API serving short text snippets, the hosting costs shouldn't be more than a few cents per user per year. Let's say you're serving one university with 50,000 students, and your hosting costs are $3,000 per year... Just send out an update email once a quarter with a few ads at the end and you've more than covered your expenses.

You also need to pay for staff to handle customer and legal complaints. That ain't cheap.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak

#24

Post by mirimir » Sat, May 27, 2017, 2:20 PM UTC

qmarchi wrote: post #16

Honestly, I don't get all the complaining from harassment. We live in a digital age where we can control a large amount of our information stream. If we don't like something, we just turn off the stream. It's like left-wing advocates and Fox. They don't like it, so they don't watch it. If you don't like what people are posting on some service, remove the service, inform people you know that you don't care about what'…

Sure. I'm sure that people are saying all sorts of bad things about Mirimir. And about my other personas. And about my meatspace identity. But I don't go out of my way to read that stuff. Any more than I go out of my way to read media that seems stupid.

However, I do get the concern about anonymous online mobs. If you're targeted heavily online, it's possible that someone will act out violently. Like that guy who shot up Comet Ping Pong over “Pizza Gate.”

People generally don't seem to handle online anonymity very well. But that's just how it is. Online anonymity is too important for many reasons to be killed over harassment. The key is to provide it anonymously, and make sure that it can't be taken down.

Edit: typo

Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak

#25

Post by criley2 » Sat, May 27, 2017, 2:20 PM UTC

qmarchi wrote: post #16

Honestly, I don't get all the complaining from harassment. We live in a digital age where we can control a large amount of our information stream. If we don't like something, we just turn off the stream. It's like left-wing advocates and Fox. They don't like it, so they don't watch it. If you don't like what people are posting on some service, remove the service, inform people you know that you don't care about what'…

"But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm missing something. Let me know. I love being wrong, it lets me learn new things"

So, I think the concept of society especially for teenagers in their school-controlled world is very interesting.

You're ostensibly right, "just turn it off", but I think it's more complicated.

So why would someone go to a place voluntarily where they are being attacked?

Maybe, it's an important part of the society there, an important forum that the most respected people are using.

Being a part of your local Yik Yak for teenagers is like going to I/O or WWDC, you're in the nexus of the community.

I think those chats acted that way for many teenagers. The location-binding feature is perfect for the insular school communities to create exclusive popular communities.

And to be as mean as they wanted through them.

Also with regards to harassment, Yik Yak would commonly be a place where people go to discuss real life harassment of others.

So, for those unfortunate few, they weren't going to Yik Yak and seeing harassment, rather, they never went, but their harassers used Yik Yak to discuss, refine, and promote the real life harassment.

I think it's very complicated to try and insert ourselves back into the insular school mentality to try and understand this, but I think it's simple that Yik Yak was/is a popular tool for coordinating real life bullying.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak

#26

Post by soneca » Sat, May 27, 2017, 2:20 PM UTC

qmarchi wrote: post #16

Honestly, I don't get all the complaining from harassment. We live in a digital age where we can control a large amount of our information stream. If we don't like something, we just turn off the stream. It's like left-wing advocates and Fox. They don't like it, so they don't watch it. If you don't like what people are posting on some service, remove the service, inform people you know that you don't care about what'…

I believe you are wrong in assuming this blasée attitude is the right one or obvious one for everyone.

In a way you are overestimating the maturity of teenagers and young adults. In another way I think you are overestimating your own (and anyone's) ability to handle personal offense on a topic that you are sensitive about from a person that you know and it is close to you (you don't know who is, but you know you know the person, that's the point of hyper local).

The article touchs on that. One thing is a person saying things you don't like on TV directed to the masses. Another thing is a person far from you and who you don't know saying bad things directly to you and your friends. And yet another thing is someone you know and it is close to you saying bad things directly to you and your friends. This last one is much harder to act like you don't care.

But, ultimately, it is not about being right or wrong, it is about exercising empathy. Understanding that people react differently to situations and we have to consider that if we care for them. Doesnt matter if we personally would react so much better than them or not.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak

#27

Post by mirimir » Sat, May 27, 2017, 2:22 PM UTC

sikosmurf wrote: post #22

nothis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is pretty specific. First of all, it talks about school kids who you can't really tell to "be rational about it". Secondly, if you turn off your phone but people still organize multimedia mass-harassment behind your back, "turning off your phone" doesn't change shit.

A third point is that "turn off your phone" is incredibly dismissive. A person shouldn't have to live without the Internet due to the actions of one, two, or twenty individuals.

You don't need to turn the phone off. Just filter out stuff that you don't want.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak

#28

Post by Alex3917 » Sat, May 27, 2017, 2:22 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #23

Alex3917 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wonder if it is possible to run an app like this at cost somehow. Given that it's just an API serving short text snippets, the hosting costs shouldn't be more than a few cents per user per year. Let's say you're serving one university with 50,000 students, and your hosting costs are $3,000 per year... Just send out an update email once a quarter with a few ads at the end and you've more than covered your expenses.

You also need to pay for staff to handle customer and legal complaints. That ain't cheap.

Maybe in addition to having your users indemnify you for their UGC in the TOS, you could have users agree to pay you 25k every time they posted something like a bomb threat, rape threat, drug deal, etc.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak

#29

Post by danajp » Sat, May 27, 2017, 2:28 PM UTC

I wish the author had spent a bit more time trying to uncover the inside story of Yik Yak as well. It would have been nice to see a post mortem from employees, investors or the founders.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak

#30

Post by brickmort » Sat, May 27, 2017, 2:35 PM UTC

qmarchi wrote: post #16

Honestly, I don't get all the complaining from harassment. We live in a digital age where we can control a large amount of our information stream. If we don't like something, we just turn off the stream. It's like left-wing advocates and Fox. They don't like it, so they don't watch it. If you don't like what people are posting on some service, remove the service, inform people you know that you don't care about what'…

My thoughts exactly. I don't like the idea of a culture where it's ok to think "you're saying things I don't like, so you should be banned from saying it completely". its unhealthy and causes more harm the more it's permitted.