Yik Yak App Terrorizes School Districts and other organizations around the country!

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Yik Yak App

Yik Yak App has become the ultimate electronic tool for cyber-bullies, those wanting negative attention and to others – a way to terrorize their school/organization.

This app will allow an anonymous person to target others (students, faculty, co-workers, organizations) with hate speech, without any consequences whatsoever. It amplifies the phenomena seen in cyber-bullying where the person; feels invisible, feels the group pressure, feels like there will not be consequence for their actions and it can – seemingly – remove all pretense of being a person with empathy, genuineness and connection to others.

The Yik Yak app is like an electronic local bulletin board (a more accurate description is – the bathroom wall brought to the public) for your area by showing the most recent posts from other users within 1.5 miles of you, at any time. It’s location-aware, accessible to users only within a 1.5 mile radius from their physical location. It allows anyone, within a 1.5 mile radius, to share whatever they want with everyone, with the feeling of no consequences. The Yik Yak app is one of a flurry of hot apps; like Secret, Whisper and Instagram, that allow users to speak their minds without revealing their identities; and, sometimes, to even insult, shame, and threaten individuals, schools and organizations.

Yik Yak is causing a lot of controversy, not just for its slurs, rude comments and off color jokes but for the intense cyber-bullying, cyber-staking, death threats, school-wide bomb threats and school/business-wide mass shooting threats.

students texting

Here are a few:

1. Sarasota County Schools – Yik Yak’s popularity among students at Riverview High, Pine View School, and Sarasota High has caused the school district to take action, after a number of student complaints of cyber-bullying which was happening on school grounds.
2. A Marblehead High School student used Yik Yak to send a bomb threat to the school. The police worked with Yik Yak to identify the juvenile and charged him with a bomb threat. Although, a second threat was received the same day.
3. A private high school in Massachusetts received an bombardment of ugly rumors and hateful statements toward students and faculty for a period of one day. School officials have pleaded with the students to stop using their smartphones to destroy the self-esteem of others.
4. A public high school in Massachusetts was evacuated twice after anonymous threats were made using Yik Yak.
5. Two situations of shooting threats, one in Alabama and one in California show how authorities might view the severity of criminally offensive posts – to – posts by someone who calls someone else stupid or fat.
6. Schools in Chicago, Massachusetts, Florida, Connecticut, California and others have reported serious disruptions, to include shooting threats and bombing threats.
7. This is happening at businesses too; where employees were posting appalling mixes of bullying, racism, sexism, profanity and drug references for all to see.

So, what can be done?

1. Some of contacted the developers of the app and they have erected “geo-fencing” using GPS coordinates (the longitude and latitude of a school) to disable the app on their campuses. Although, there are other apps up and coming with this same technology.
2. Notify parents, staff and employers of this type of program. They need to observe, watch, monitor, and listen to those using it.
3. Change their environment – by developing Respectful and Caring schools and business.
4. Teach Cyber-Bullying programs which emphasizes respect, digital literacy, responsibility (to speak-up and to not go along with the crowd) and the devastation this can cause to their school’s community and/or business’ community.

Learn more:

• Learn more about FREE Downloads on Cyberbullying by filling out form: click here and go to bottom of page
• Keys’ FREE “Knowledge Base Center” – Managing Bullying pdf downloads
• See Books & Material on Bullying
• See Anti-Bullying/Cyber-Bullying Training
• Learn more about our Subject Matter Experts