A platform for the inflammatory or the constructive?The role Yik Yak plays in campus dialogue

Recent controversies surrounding the One Colby protest have thrust Yik Yak back into the spotlight. After the app’s reemergence, students and campus officials alike have debated whether the platform is truly a space suited for facilitating serious dialogue.

Gossip about the latest events are nothing new on Colby’s campus; everyone has an opinion to share, from the nocturnal behavior of their neighbors to College policy. It seems only fitting that a student-dominated platform is highly opinionated by nature. 

Yik Yak has become a central forum for student expression. While browsing the app one can expect to see the occasional crude jokes interspersed with humor about the mundane and sometimes awkward life at the College. 

Yik Yak, most popular on college campuses during the early 2010s, returned to Apple’s App Store on Aug. 16 for U.S. users, marking an end to a four-year hiatus. The platform temporarily shut down in 2017 following a sharp user base decline because of a series of harassment lawsuits and the dispersal of college students during the summer. 

Although users must register with phone numbers, profiles themselves are anonymous. Users within a five-mile radius are able to interact in 200-character maximum posts within a shared forum. 

Interest in Yik Yak has surged following its revival, once again becoming prominent among student bodies across the country, including here at the College.

The anonymous forum hosts a variety of discussions and is unsurprisingly no stranger to contention. In 2015, when the app was still operating, it was entangled in controversy about student-led protests against the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed Black man. 

In response to Brown’s murder, Students Organized for Black and Hispanic Unity (SOBHU), the previous name of SOBLU, held a Black Lives Matter rally that spring. 

On the day of the rally, a number of racist posts responding to protestors appeared on Yik Yak. Some suggested tear-gassing to give an “authentic protestor experience,” and others used racial epithets, calling student protestors “black trash.” 

This use of the platform drew the attention of the College administration and was met with swift condemnation from the wider Colby community, accelerating its eventual decline in popularity at the College.  

Despite its unsavory past,  people have not shied away from the app as it made its August return. 

Although Yik Yak has instituted tighter post moderation policies, the platform remains relatively unfiltered, often hosting crass humor but is in general a far cry from its more inflammatory past. 

One Colby, the student group expressing dissatisfaction with a variety of aspects of the College, has taken campus conversation by storm after delaying a Colby football game with its Oct. 3 protest. While some perceive the group as petulant in their demands and others feel validated in what they see as a long-overdue voicing of their concerns, many are left attempting to make sense of everything. 

Yik Yak, unlike other platforms used by the student body like Civil Discourse, has provided a space for more discussion, but with fewer incentives for personal censorship due to its anonymous nature. This has led to some questioning whether it can be a forum for meaningful dialogue, especially in the context of the One Colby controversy. 

“I feel that if used properly, Yik Yak could be a great place to start these conversations because, from what I understand, you can pretty much talk about anything on there,” Deekayla Thomas `23 remarked. 

Thomas acknowledged that “the anonymous posts can start to devolve into bullying and less constructive conversations.”

This concern was also raised by several other students who wished to remain anonymous. 

“I think Yik Yak can be a constructive outlet because people can give their unfiltered opinion,” one user said.

When asked if Yik Yak could serve as an agent of change for the One Colby movement, most students believed the platform alone is insufficient but could be the beginning of in-person dialogue.

However, this mindset has brought into question whether informal Yik Yak posts could contribute to serious conversations.

“I feel Yik Yak is meant to be a pretty non-serious space, so I’m not sure it would even be the right idea to begin addressing such important topics on it,” one user said.

Some did believe that the platform’s 200-character limit encouraged more concise exchange and an ability to critically engage on a deeper level.

“I’ve spoken with a lot of people about it, and I appreciate being able to see things be  critiqued in an unrestricted manner, but that is bound to a limit which encourages more conscious use of text space to say something important,” a student said. 

“The nature of [Yik Yak] and constraints placed on post size can help people be concise, but it also shows why these conversations need to take place in-person,” another anonymous user explained.

Some remarked that the format encourages simplistic thinking, leaving little room for nuance and more opportunity for what one user called “vapid posting,” which they described as attention-seeking.

Many were quick to note how Civil Discourse’s format invites more members of the community to weigh in, including faculty, a critical factor in the success of any campus-wide reform effort.

Yik Yak’s use by students has widened the perceived disconnect many feel between the student body and administration when it comes to critical dialogue. This gap may only fuel tensions between the two as cries for understanding grow louder from proponents and detractors alike amid the One Colby controversy.

In addition, many feel the app simply reinforces prior-held convictions instead of creating dialogue. 

Yik Yak gives users the ability to upvote or downvote posted content, meaning in some cases posts that receive a large enough proportion of downvotes are automatically removed.

Critics have scrutinized this feature as an effort by Yik Yak to relinquish direct moderating responsibility, preferring instead to outsource moderation to communities and algorithms. 

But critics most frequently cite how this can shut down mean -ingful discussions, unlike a space such as Civil Discourse, where users cannot vote to remove posts.

“[Yik Yak] further solidifies people’s views on One Colby and it can facilitate some aggression — I don’t think it moves us forward because everyone feels defensive,” one user remarked.

Yik Yak’s role going forward is uncertain. Yet its ability to host a spectrum of passions, anxieties, and frustrations we all hold is undeniably clear. All of us have a role to play in shaping how we communicate because platforms won’t do it themselves.

~ Aaron Mills `24