Why Yik Yak Will Be the First Website I Hack

So I suppose by now that a lot of you already have heard of that anonymous twitter-like website, called Yik Yak. For those of you are who are not up to date about this app, I will explain it in brief.

Yik Yak, created on November 3rd, 2013, is a location-based messaging service that is entirely anonymous. It resembles a twitter, without having to log in or choose a username. As Yik Yak's website states: "Send and receive anonymous messages based on your location. No sign in, no profile, just chat with anyone around you. Choose your message radius to reach different amounts of people." A person can post and vote on posts without anyone having to know who they are. Sounds great, right? Not really.

Since anyone can post anything with having to say who they are, everything is posted on this website, with no sense of filter or morality. It is overrun with profanity, unpure thoughts, and unkind, bullying verbal behavior. Yes, once a post is voted down enough times, it "disappears". However, that doesn't undo the damage it has already done, and sadly, once something is on the internet, it never really goes away. 

Last week the first-years at my college had what they called "Intruder Training", which was a lecture on how to handle yourself during a dangerous situation, and to stay safe. The person giving the lecture mentioned how one of our academic buildings does not have lockable doors or furniture that you can move to cover yourself. Her point in saying this was that we needed to make sure we got out of that building as fast as possible, were the college campus to be under threat. 

Shortly after this session, someone posted on Yik Yak a statement that people who were in that academic building the instructor mentioned were pretty much dead if there happened to be an active shooter on campus. My college, wanting to make sure that everyone was safe and eliminate the possibility of a threat, locked the building down and checked everyone's backpacks before they went into class. 

As you can see, one small anonymous post on Yik Yak led to many people feeling unsafe and unrest on campus. Because of the easy accessibility of the website and the lack of filter, the person who posted this comment had no second thoughts - after all no one would know who they were. I go to a Christian college, and the use of this website bothers me - I want to protect my brothers and sisters in Christ and participate in an uplifting community. Yik Yak is not helping that. 

"Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear." Ephesians 4:29