For those of you who haven’t already heard of Yik Yak, it’s a location-based app with an anonymous chat room where up to 500 users can connect through GPS tracking on their cell phones. The app is only four months old, but already has several hundred thousand users. 

"The app was made for college-age users or above, for college campuses and to act as a virtual bulletin board, so it acts as local Twitter for their campus," said Yik Yak co-founder Brooks Buffington.

Unlike Twitter, Yik Yak users are limited to 200 characters instead of 140. In addition, no pictures are allowed, and if a post is “down voted” enough times by other users within the area, the comment disappears. Unfortunately, those are about the only restrictions the app has.

Although the rules of Yik Yak state things like “you DO NOT bully or specifically target others yakkers,” and “zero tolerance policy on using people’s full names,” the app has no way of enforcing these rules.

The problem with no enforced restrictions on what you can write is magnified by the anonymity from hiding the identity of the users who post comments or “up vote” and “down vote” them. When you think no one will know it’s you who posts something, you’re much more likely to write something you wouldn’t have if your identity was known.

When my friend showed me the app two weeks ago, I was disgusted by the things my peers were writing about each other. Not only were TCU “yakkers” bashing specific sororities and fraternities, but they were targeting specific people.

Some of the posts people commented on included questions like, “who are the biggest sluts at TCU?” and “who is the biggest douche at TCU?” Ignorant people might not see the problem with this and think, “maybe if she wasn’t such a slut her name wouldn’t be written on there in the first place.” Wrong. 

Maybe this girl had one bad night, or this guy said one “douchey” thing. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to know or that it is his or her defining character trait. I know it’s tempting to read what people are saying about you or other people you know, but many times what’s written is not true. Even if it is, it’s often hurtful and damaging for the person it’s about, so by reading it, you’re only making it worse.

Yik Yak has become a huge problem among high school and middle school students. Like college students, many of them use it to anonymously cyber bully their peers. According to healthline.com, victims of cyber bullying are twice as likely to attempt suicide, while 48 percent of high school students have admitted to being cyber bullied. 

Other issues among young Yik Yak users escalated quickly when two high schools last month went on lock down due to bomb threats posted on the app. What many users don’t realize is that even if a post is anonymous, it can still be tracked with an IP address and a police search warrant. Because of this, one of the students who posted the threats was arrested. After much criticism, the creators of Yik Yak geofenced the areas around high schools and middle schools to permit users to access the app while at school. 

This culture of anonymous bullying is so twisted. Hypothetically, let’s say Yik Yak announced that it would reveal all of its anonymous users’ identities tomorrow, but gave everyone one day to choose whether or not to delete their comments, up votes, and down votes. I bet over half of the users would delete their comments and votes. 

Are you really proud that you up voted a post that said all the guys at a specific fraternity are terrible people or you commented, “I need a slut to f*** right now. Girls, any takers?” Both are real posts from the 817 area code. 

What if you weren’t given the chance to remove your comments. I’m sure we’d be shocked to see the horrific things some of our peers wrote when they thought no one would find out.

We’re all fellow horned frogs, but this app is destroying the strength of the TCU community. Seriously, people, if anonymously talking crap and getting a few likes on your post makes you feel good about yourself, then I feel bad for you.

Take a look at yourself and the person you want to be. Is tearing down others through social media really helping you get there? My suggestion is to delete the app from your phone. Our school and community is much better without it.