Sounds like an ignorance is bliss type of story to me. Just because it may not be in some app next time doesn't mean nobody is having the same thoughts or says the same things in some other form. Blaming some app for the existence of harassment seems rather far-fetched to me.
The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak
61–70 of 145 posts
Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak
#62Pretty sure PiperChat killed Yik Yak.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak
#63>two feminist groups and several former students filed a federal complaint accusing the University of Mary Washington...of failing to protect the female plaintiffs from cyber harassment... I am confused as to why anyone thinks its the University's duty to protect their students from "cyber harassment." I mean, I am aware of Title IX and all, I am just shocked at the amount of control, influence, and involvement into…
Sadly it's what the parents today (who pay the tuition) are demanding. Hence "unique snowflakes" and "helicopter parents." Add to that a healthy dose of media sensationalism to a degree that never used to happen. Everything is drama, crisis, outrage, injustice.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak
#64The article makes the case (to me) that local + anonymous was a failed experiment. In real-life communities, local means not anonymous, and bad behavior -- which is rare whether anonymous or not -- can be tied to an individual right away. The problem is that nasty, anonymous, and local is a terrible combination: > That hyper-localization is also what made the cases of harassment particularly galling. Ms. Musick, one…
Zephyr, the first IP-based IM system, briefly experimented with anonymity. It was similarly local--mostly being on the MIT campus (links to CMU zephyr being rare). I've not seen a historical record of the messages posted, but I've been told by multiple grey-haired alums that things turned toxic very quickly.
When I was in college a decade ago there were multiple sites like this. Juicy Campus was one of them, but I can't remember others.
You could find some really abhorrent things on there, but no one ever got into trouble. It's a shitty message board and some people get their feelings hurts. We're all adults though, people just moved on.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak
#65Honestly, 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'…
Why bend over backwards and cut yourself off from your college community just to cater to jerks? Do you think the mods of HN are "hyper-sensitive pricks" for trying to preserve the quality of discourse here? People seem to live under this illusion that the internet is somehow completely removed from real life, that the bigotry and hate doesn't count if it's over a computer. "Just close your eyes and pretend it isn't…
Thanks for saying this. Threads like this baffle me, make me sad and wonder if its time to just stop visiting this site.
If you don’t mind being bullied, harassed, or threatened, that’s great, but it harms people. Whether you think it should or shouldn’t is irrelevant. Personally I don’t know anyone who has experienced it that wasn’t harmed. YikYak specifically was also horrific for Professors. (& of course, it also had disparate impact on women and people of color). So, either you don’t actually believe it does harm or you don’t care.
Please don’t @ me about free speech or censorship; not only is it irrelevant to startups because they are businesses & not the government, but moderation & boundaries are what make communities endure.
We make choices about what we build & what behavior it will enable. Choosing to permit or even encourage such behavior is not a matter of principles—it’s a choice of who can and cannot participate, which, as YikYak, Secret 4Chan etc show, directly correlates to the viability of the product as a business.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak
#66Earlier 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.
But they don't have to be a part of Yik Yak, etc. If you walk into a bar and people insult you, don't go to that bar. You also ought not be demanding that the bar be shut down either. Go somewhere else.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak
#67>two feminist groups and several former students filed a federal complaint accusing the University of Mary Washington...of failing to protect the female plaintiffs from cyber harassment... I am confused as to why anyone thinks its the University's duty to protect their students from "cyber harassment." I mean, I am aware of Title IX and all, I am just shocked at the amount of control, influence, and involvement into…
Why shouldn't the university offer some form of protection? Even if it's the form of blocking the app?
The police clearly don't give a shit. Someone has to do something. What are universities doing with all that money they get from tuition?
Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak
#68>two feminist groups and several former students filed a federal complaint accusing the University of Mary Washington...of failing to protect the female plaintiffs from cyber harassment... I am confused as to why anyone thinks its the University's duty to protect their students from "cyber harassment." I mean, I am aware of Title IX and all, I am just shocked at the amount of control, influence, and involvement into…
Are you really confused? Leaving the law & federal funding requirements aside, Universities seek to have successful graduates & thus it is in their best interest to provide an environment that equips their students to learn. Being harassed undermines these goals, so regardless of the law, it is in their best interest to prevent such disruptions.
I'm not sure I understand the bird analogy. Is the point that Universities can't control birds? Well, Universities can & do already actually demand that their students not harass other students as a condition of their attendance.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak
#69Honestly, 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 th…
School (I'm speaking of high school and younger) isn't the real world. Many things that are perfectly legal for adults are prohibited in school because they disrupt the mission that the school is trying to accomplish. There's certainly a grey area but things like dress and speech codes are well established and for good reasons. A service like yik-yak has no real benefit in an environment like that. In fact I don't even know why schools allow personal mobile devices at all.
As far as universities go, yes I think "if you don't like it don't go there" is much more realistic. Those students are all adults and by that age have mostly (certainly not completely) outgrown the most petty type of cliquishness and bullying that permeates the junior high and high school social scene.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm missing something Post your name and address here, and give me 72 hours to show you what the harassment being complained about is like.
You're threatening to harass someone, to make a point? And you're doing it, apparently using your real name? That strikes me as crazy. Just sayin'.
qmarchi says it's not harassment and that it's trivial to ignore. Here's a chance for them to test their methods and to prove those methods work.
Or, if releasing their name and address for a 3 day experiment is too scary maybe they can accept that they've got it wrong, and that harassment is real and causes harm.