Yik Yak becomes Popular

Another social network rises. The popularity might not be for the good.

Yik Yak is an anonymous social network that connects users via their location proximity. It is actually not really anonymous as the service records some data that identifies a user. Yik Yak rose in popularity recently mostly among college students. Incidents of cyber bullying and kill threats brought Yik Yak into news headlines.

Apparently users who make threats against their schools or others are not realizing that they are not really anonymous. The police can get derive their identity from the information Yik Yak is recording and track them down. This has happened several times in this year according to a recent Washington Post article. Yik Yak says that they record IP address, GPS and timestamps. 

Will Yik Yak further grow or will its growth momentum sizzle? Yik Yak can give a community on a school a very easy to use way to connect. The only issue is if troubled users making Yik Yak an uncontrolled source of threats and cyber bullying.

Yik Yak’s terms of use say that you need to be at least 18 years of age. I recommend parents to make sure their kids under 18 are not using Yik Yak. On Facebook you can still control what is going on, but on Yik Yak your kids are exposed to potentially harmful information that you cannot even see unless you camp out in front of their school.