Dear San Clemente High School Community,
Please take some time to discuss the pros and cons of anonymity with a teen this weekend. Tonight might be even better – many of our students are not too happy with how an anonymous post locked them in a classroom for several hours. The message that we should always “own what we say” is very important to reinforce with our teens in this time of rapid social media change. Like Mr. Halt, I am shocked by the vileness of the posts on Yik Yak. They are hurtful and damaging and our students names are on them. Cyber Bullying is real and disturbing and the anonymous sites allow for real cruelty. Remind your Teen to think before posting – will it inspire, be truthful, kind – and would it be something you would want a future employer or college admissions officer to read.
The article below sums up the problems with Yik Yak – please pass this email on to other families you know.
As always call me with any questions or concerns.
Susan Parmelee, MSW
San Clemente High School Wellness & Prevention
Western Youth Services
949-680-0516
Yik Yak app is wreaking havoc in schools: 11 things parents need to know
By Shannan Younger, /www.chicagonow.com
Problematic apps that are popular with kids and full of inappropriate content keep popping up. It’s like a game of whack-a-mole: just when you get a handle on one and smack it down, another one pops up. The latest offender: the app Yik Yak.
Parents could be fooled by the friendly-looking yak logo, but hiding behind the cute face is an app that’s causing big problems in schools around the country. Students used Yik Yak to spread rumors of possible school violence at high schools in Mobile, Alabama last week and in Marblehead, Massachusetts yesterday. There are a lot of problems with apps and I’ve written about a lot of them. This app, however, seems particularly egregious. That it is being used to cause fear and panic in our schools makes it particularly abhorrent to me.
This week, a middle school in Georgia sent home a letter warning parents about the “potentially inflammatory app.” It has been used by kids to cyberbully others with posts so hateful a Philadelphia school changed its policy of allowing smartphones.
The new Yik Yak app launched just three months ago that Tech Crunch reports has more than 100,000 users and 15,000 messages sent each day. It’s spreading like wildfire. Here’s what parents need to know
- The app store states “You must be at least 17 years old to download this app.” That is apparently not stopping anyone.
- Yik Yak can have frequent/intense sexual content, nudity, profanity, crude humor, and references to alcohol, tobacco, or drug use.
- Yik Yak allows anonymous comments or posts done using an alias.
- Users believe that there is no way to trace the source of the messages, but police were able to arrest a juvenile after investigators learned where the post was made after receiving help from Yik Yak.
- The anonymity leads to posts described by the middle school principal in Georgia as “especially vicious and hurtful.” The anonymity and use of aliases makes it ripe for use as a cyberbullying tool, which has certainly happened. Philly.com described posts sent by kids about others as “hateful” and noted that it was used to defame a deceased student.
- Yik Yak knows your location and allows users to discover a live feed of Yaks (or messages) posted by people within 5 to 10 miles of their location. Posters choose to share with the closest 100, 250, or 500 Yik Yak users.
- Users have to be signed into the app to receive the messages, but they don’t have to have an account.
- The app encourages discussion of “anything and everything” and encourages “share your stories anonymously and get upvotes if people like it.” (If you need a tool to help explain to kids what stories should and should not be shared online, check out this post.) http://www.chicagonow.com/tween-us/2014/02/try-this-low-tech-tool-to-help-keep-your-kids-safe-online/
- The description of it in the App Store says “What happens on Yik Yak, stays on Yik Yak.” Kids are misled by such statements seeming to promise privacy, which sound similar to Snapchat. Of course, app users cannot control what happens to posts on the internet which can end up anywhere and read by anyone.
- The app was developed by students at Furman University and was intended for use on college campuses. This app has followed the path of many trends and has trickled down to younger kids, so Yik Yak is now big in high school and even middle schools. Schools have objected to Yik Yak, saying it violated their anti-bullying policies.
- Yik Yak offers two ways to report inappropriate content. One way is to have two people select the comment and click the report inappropriate button. The other is emailing a screen shot of offensive content to yikyakapp@gmail.com for immediate removal.