By: Brooke Gary
Many students in high school or college between the years of 2014–2016 likely remember the anonymous social media platform, Yik Yak. While some students may recall Yik Yak as an app that allowed them to engage with other students on campus or freely voice their opinions, most students likely remember Yik Yak as a forum that facilitated and perpetuated cyber-bullying, hate speech, and sexual harassment on school campuses. Yik Yak received heavy criticism, and the app was shut down in 2017. However, whether students like it or not, Yik Yak has returned from the dead and is back for download in the App Store.
Yik Yak is a location-based app that allows users to anonymously share messages and posts with anyone within a 5-mile radius. Essentially, Yik Yak is like an anonymous Twitter, where the humor is grounded in the shared experience of living in a certain location. Yik Yak does not sort messages according to friends or followers but by geographic location, making it well suited to school campuses. Yik Yak allows users to post their own words, as well as “upvote,” “downvote,” or comment on the posts of others.
One of the largest draws to Yik Yak, especially on school campuses, is its anonymity. The original creators of the app argued that students needed a forum to share their thoughts with those around them while maintaining their privacy. Unlike most other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, individuals can post a Yik Yak without any sort of username or personal identifier. Such anonymity is an attractive concept to a generation who grew up in an era of social media and are inclined to share, but who have been warned repeatedly about the permanence of their digital footprint. In addition, Yik Yak removes all labels–whether it be a personal brand or a societal label–and allows “[t]he most popular celebrity on earth [to appear] exactly the same as an average person.”
However, anonymity can also give individuals the sense of empowerment to say anything they want to say, creating a breeding ground for hate speech. In the case of Yik Yak, the app did just that, and became infamous for enabling cyberbullying. At its peak popularity in 2015, Yik Yak began to receive high levels of criticism as students used the platform to target minorities, call out specific students, and even make death threats. At Western Washington University, there were posts calling to lynch the black student body president. At Kenyon College in Ohio, an anonymous commenter proposed a gang rape at the school’s women’s center.
The return of Yik Yak after four years is thus concerning for many teachers, students, and staff, who fear the app will once again be used for cyberbullying and hate speech. Since its original debut, the app has come under new ownership. The new ownership says it is committed to controlling the spread of hate speech on Yik Yak by using Community Guardrails. The app’s website lists numerous categories of posts which are not allowed, such as using real names inappropriately, soliciting dangerous goods or services, facilitating bullying and making threats, as well as breaking any federal or local laws. The website further explains that in cases where the category of violation is serious, users will be banned via a one-strike-and-you’re-out policy. However, at the same time, the new ownership promises that the app will be “the same Yik Yak experience millions knew and loved,” which for many is both paradoxical and concerning.
The issue with Yik Yak is not only the use of the app to promote hurtful and harmful speech, but also schools’ inability to prevent such speech. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that anonymous speech is protected by the First Amendment. In the 1995 landmark case of McIntyre v. Ohio, the Court argued that “Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation.” Regarding freedom of speech protections on school campuses, the Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment applies to public schools. In the 1969 landmark Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines, the court argued that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
However, the Supreme Court did note that conduct by a student in a public school that disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of rights, is not protected. As a result, some of the derogatory statements made on Yik Yak that target a particular group of people or have the potential to incite violence, are likely not protected speech on a college or university campus. However, the issue schools face when attempting to punish derogatory and harmful statements on Yik Yak, is the anonymity of Yik Yak. Yik Yak’s privacy policy prevents schools from identifying users without a subpoena, court order or search warrant, or an emergency request from a law-enforcement official with a compelling claim of imminent harm.
In cases involving threats of mass violence, Yik Yak has cooperated with authorities. For instance, in 2015, an Emory University student was arrested for a school shooting threat posted on Yik Yak. Students at Emory alerted police about the threatening post, and an investigation eventually led detectives to the student. Therefore, a student who felt that he or she had been the target of an attack on Yik Yak could theoretically pursue defamation charges and subpoena the company to find out who had written the post. However, aside from taking legal action or getting the police involved, schools are limited in how to prevent hateful posts. During the app’s heyday from 2014–2016, many colleges and universities took initiative to curtail the use of Yik Yak by blocking access to the app on their Wi-Fi networks. However, this ban was little more than symbolic since students could still access the app through their phones when they were not connected to the Wi-Fi. In addition, the banning of Yik Yak is controversial in its own right, as it would ban posts that are not derogatory or offensive, and is arguably tantamount to curtailing freedom of speech.
Although the return of Yik Yak is concerning for many, there is some hope that the app will not resurrect the toxic environment that existed four years ago. Yik Yak may play host to various expressions of bigotry and hate speech, but it is not the source of such speech. Ultimately, it is the users of Yik Yak who decide whether the app is used for good or bad. While it would be foolish to assume that there is no longer racism, sexism, and intolerance in our communities, it is possible that today’s college students are more tolerant and mindful of the impact that their words can have on their communities. In addition, it is possible that Yik Yak simply won’t reach such high levels of popularity on college and university campuses. The generation that once experienced Yik Yak is now well beyond their college years, and students in college now have not yet shown as much interest in the app.
Student Bio: Brooke Gary is a second-year law student at Suffolk University Law School. She is a staffer on the Journal of High Technology Law. Brooke received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and Government from Colby College.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are the views of the author alone and do not represent the views of JHTL or Suffolk University Law School.
