Yik Yak Fights Cyberbullying

            With new technology every year, the potential for a person to cyberbully another person increases. There are many application and websites out in the virtual world that allow for the possibility for cyberbullying to occur.  Cyberbullying is the willful and repeated harm inflicted through phones and computers. This type of harm can range anywhere from teasing texts to harassing through websites. From fake facebook profiles to anonymous questions on ask.fm, the ability to use technology to hide is possible. A very questionable but popular application that is used is the well-known app Yik Yak. Yik Yak, launched in November of 2013, is a website that allows for its users to anonymously post texts as long as 200 characters to be viewed by all. Especially popular in college communities, it is not uncommon to see hundreds of posts made in one day. Although there are many harmless posts that are posted, there are also various posts that are not. These are the posts that can be considered cyberbullying.

            The article, "Who Spewed That Abuse?" published in the New York Times covers the story of how a professor at Eastern Michigan University was targeted by many yaks during her lecture. If her assistant did not show her, Professor Crouch would have never known what terrible things her students had said about her. Professor Crouch's response to the Yaks was, “I have been defamed, my reputation besmirched. I have been sexually harassed and verbally abused. I am about ready to hire a lawyer." However, despite fighting to find the people behind the posts, Yik Yak reserves the ability to protect its users. They advertise an application that is anonymous and, therefore, maintain their word by maintaining the privacy of their users. It is not until that someone's security is threatened that the company acts on locating the given individual. Yik Yak tries to avoid posting harmful material by trying to filter posts that contain target words such as "bomb." Furthermore, they recommend users report any alarming posts. There is nothing to do except try to stop the posts after they have been posted. Hopefully, Yik Yak can develop better filtering systems to help stop potential harmful posts.