New app encourages bullying, shaming
When I was in high school, some loser created a Twitter account and started pelting their schoolmates with insults from behind the cloak of anonymity. Twitter administrators took it down relatively quickly, but the damage, as they say, was done. High schoolers aren’t know for their thick skin, and it showed. For the next couple weeks, a pall fell over the campus. No secret was safe. It could easily happen again and we all knew it.
Now that I’m in college, where mature people go to do mature things, it’s almost comforting to know that Yik Yak, an anonymous, twitter-esque posting site, has made it that much easier to reveal other students’ personal information consequence-free.
At least that much hasn’t changed.
And, just like that feckless loser in high school, it turns out that USC college students, given a promise of anonymity, will do the exact same thing.
Here are excerpts from some of the most enlightened and empowering thoughts: “People with STDs should glow in the dark.” (90 up-votes.) “I wanna have sex in the library.” (50 up-votes.) “To the dude in the Clemson shirt at the gym … Die.” (17 up-votes.)
I am intentionally leaving out those “yaks” which specifically mention names of people, of which there were two. Needless to say, what they revealed (or claim they revealed) wasn’t complementary.
So, why is the immediate instinct of many college students to start flinging the feces when they know they can’t be punished for it?
Surely, it has something to do with the environment. Yik Yak provides a safe haven for thoughts that would be inexcusable in other contexts. It’s easy to do, and completely without risk to the gossipy loser in question. Some people really enjoy talking about people without them present. And being able to do so with everyone at once must have a certain special draw to some individuals.
But anonymity, as a concept, isn’t all bad. There’s also a sense of democracy one can draw from it, and even a sense of equality.
Like Reddit, another social media site, Yik Yak uses up-votes are a method of differentiating the “good” posts from the “bad” ones. Opening up this kind of procedure to a mass audience is democracy in its purest form. That which people like continues to survive. That which people don’t like is condemned to obscurity.
Like 4chan, the den of iniquity and “unseeable” pictures, anonymity remains the main draw. Despite its potential for harm, anonymity can mean that everyone has a voice, and can speak their mind even in the company of strangers.
A mainstay of 4chan’s less reputable sections is the “baww” thread, in which users comfort one another, and reveal secrets about themselves which otherwise might have no avenue. More than anything else, these threads resemble group therapy sessions, rather than petty schoolyard bullying.
The overall message: “we’re all in this together.”
So what’s the difference between 4chan and Yik Yak? Why is the former slightly less horrible than the latter?
Yik Yak offers local anonymity. If you name a person on that website, the people who see your post is going to know who you’re talking about. While the app itself might not be specifically designed for shaming individuals, it sets up a perfect environment for that kind of thing.
4chan, on the other hand, is an international website. It’s anonymous on a global scale, which means any person on that website can be literally anyone in the world. Because of this, it is much more difficult to shame specific individuals. Nobody will know who this person is, much less care. (Although there are exceptions.)
I’m not against anonymity, as a whole. It can be a cathartic way of speaking your mind without fear of retribution. It offers protection from harm if you are shy or, in one way or another, feel like you can’t speak out as yourself.
But, by separating the original speaker from what they say, anonymity can also be an attempt to shirk one’s responsibility, or to act in a cowardly and spiteful way.
Put short, anonymity is a tool. They way we use that tool is up to us.