In the age of YikYak

In the 7th grade, almost everyone I knew had a formspring account. I figured it could go two ways; it would either be a huge ego boost, or it would completely tear me down and leave me a broken pre-teen with no confidence. I opted not to make one. That being said, the desire to know what my peers really thought of me was almost strong enough to make me change my mind on multiple occasions.

And now, we have YikYak. In some ways you could say YikYak is just one giant public formspring. As discussed in the article by Jonathan Mahler YikYak is entirely anonymous and even given the company’s best efforts, they have yet to find a way to police cruel posts. Cyberbullying has taken an entirely new form in YikYak. The policing is more or less left up to the community members, who can down vote posts they find offensive. But is it enough? Maybe it is on a politically correct and socially liberal campus like Tufts University and yet at Kenyon College, equally liberal there was a “yak” about gang rape. Why then do we continue to let YikYak run rampant? Is it our concern for freedom of speech? Or maybe it’s just our inner 7th grade desire to know what everyone else is thinking.