Should Yik Yak Be Allowed On College Campuses?

Founding father Alexander Hamilton was a public advocate of the ratification of the constitution. In an attempt to promote it, he co-wrote the Federalist Papers with a few other founding fathers addressing the emerging government. The collection of 85 articles was featured in newspapers all across the country to educate people on the positive sides of the constitution, including number 16 which described Hamilton’s thoughts on the constitution and federal government. Through these papers he states that without a ratified “law of the land” to unify local governments civil war would break out.

In the article “Anonymous social media- Understanding the content and context of Yik Yak” the authors : Erik W. Black, Kelsey Mezzina, and Lindsay A. Thompson argue that even though Yik Yak, an anonymous social medial aimed for college students does present potential abuse, it does not demonstrate serious threat to students. The study was conducted for three days across 42 different college campuses.The author proclaims that the college campuses that were used in the research to study the content of yik yak posts are located in the Eastern and Southern parts of U.S. To support their claim, the authors incorporate numerical data from their study. The purpose of this research was obtain a better understanding of what type of content students

Students do not always realize that their free speech can go against certain limits that the Supreme Court has issued on this freedom. The US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights suggests that harassment creates a hostile environment when the conduct is sufficiently severe or persistent so as to interfere with or limit a students' ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or opportunities offered by the school. (Doc. G) In consonance with this, it is the school's responsibility to address harassment incidents to protect students' privacy rights. Allowing full access to the first amendment in schools can often result in the violation of the fourth amendment by infringing privacy rights. There are many forms of harassment that can violate students' civil rights. According to the same department, harassment based on race, color, national origin, sex, or disability violates the civil rights laws that the OCR enforces. (Doc. G) Cyberbullying often falls into these categories which are all violations of civil rights, and many schools may not have proper standards for this violation. It is the school's responsibility to protect the civil rights of students, teachers, and administrators, so they must take a stand against discrimination, including online speech. Not only does cyberbullying contravene with civil rights, it also causes emotional

Schools and the public are wasting time and resources on the over-exaggerated issue of cyberbullying. Today, schools are wasting much of their time worrying about cyberbullying and in popular media it’s mentioned too much. Schools should not be allowed to limit online speech. It’s not needed since most students haven’t been cyberbullied, cyberbullying hasn’t been proven to be very disruptive and online gossip is not common.

The purpose of my research is to explore and offer analysis of the controversy over the use of trigger warnings and safe spaces on college campuses, in order to understand when, where, and most importantly, regarding what subjects their use is appropriate.

On the issue of whether or not schools should be allowed to limit students’ online speech, I firmly believe that they shouldn’t. Doing so directly infringes upon the student’s first amendment rights to the freedom of speech, and for what? Numerous surveys have shown that cyberbullying isn’t a huge problem. Further, one document affirms the conclusion that cyberbullying is just another phase in the long-running evolution of bullying. With this essay, I aim to convince you that schools should not limit their students’ online speech, using my vast knowledge as well as cold hard facts.

In the article, “Watch What You Tweet”, by the National Coalition Against Censorship, it informs the mischief of what students are capable of when using social media to offend an individual, which can lead to school officials suspending or expelling them, and in end, violating their First Amendment rights.

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” (George Orwell) This past Spring of 2017 the University of Harvard revoked ten incoming freshman admissions for engaging in a meme group message on Facebook for the class of 2021. The freshman called the group chat “ Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens.” The memes were derogatory towards different races. The students posted jokes about the Holocaust and racist jokes towards Mexicans and other races, pedophillia, and child abuse. These Memes that the incoming students posted on Social Media caused a controversy within the campus. Students who felt perturbed about the memes screenshotted and emailed the university authorities.Which lead to an investigation and which they sought to revoke the admissions of ten students.

This can result in severe consequences for both the students and the school. Colleges such as Harvard have been denying the entrance of students due to inappropriate and explicit content posted on social media. Many high schools have begun hiring outside companies to monitor their student’s posts. The question arises: By doing so, are they violating these students First Amendment Rights? Approximately 92 percent of teenagers say they use their electronic devices daily (Ray Bendici, “Schools Step up Social Media Monitoring”). Twenty-four percent of which say they constantly use the internet. Although schools have a good intention for monitoring student’s accounts; to stop bullying, to find racist and explicit content, and to stop any threats; some schools go so far that they are violating both their student's privacy and First Amendment

Some people believe that the internet is “designed for opinions, rants, and invective” (Source C). They use that excuse to justify their actions whether their comments are friendly or not. In another case, more than 50 students protest a principal’s decision to suspend a student for cyberbullying. The students that did participate in the sit-in expressed that the student accused of cyberbullying was “exerting his rights to post what he pleases” (Source B). These accounts prove that the bullies know what they are doing is wrong and are aware of the potential outcome of their words. When students are accused of cyberbullying another person, they often find an excuse for what they did; the First Amendment of the Constitution. However, if these adolescents felt as if  their comments were not wrong in any way, they would not bother to look for an excuse when being

The world has changed over the last 50 years with the growth of technology and how we live. Debates have been had over what we should do and what's best for the people with this technology growth. Big topics about technology includes texting while driving, cyberbullying, and many more. A topic that has been brought up lately has been school's ability to limit the online speech of their students on social media platforms. Controversy has risen between school officials and the public on what the right thing is to do about this issue. Schools should not limit the online speech of their students because it is a direct violation of the 1st amendment, it should be the parents of these children to limit online speech when off school grounds, and lastly limiting online speech of students can harm them when conflicts happen in the future.

In our society today, social media is a monster because it has created unrealistic social expectations and unhealthy relationships with ourselves and others. Social media has become a central platform to everyone in our society today and can cause many problems for a large portion of the users. Many of the problems that associate with social media can cause mental and physical harm to users such as, depression, which can lead to suicidal thoughts or actions, eating disorders, and even lowered self-esteem due to the unreasonable comparisons that people make when compared to popular and successful people. One major issue that social media has brought up is the exploitation of the anonymous identification which bullies use to hide from their victims. This can single handedly cause the issues that was recently stated. The social media crowd is now influencing young teens and kids to do drugs. It causes a sort of pressure for some adolescents to engage in illegal activities such as, smoking and drinking. This can be a real danger because they are too young to realize what they are doing to their bodies and could truly put their lives in danger. Social media also causes a learning deficiency in a large portion of students. These students are constantly on their phones and it takes their full attention away from the task at hand. This causes procrastination of assignments and can lead to lower grades. They are not disciplined enough to control themselves and stay away from their

Research Question: “Why are people, particularly college and high school students, so attracted to the idea of constructing an anonymous identity through online social media platforms, like Yik Yak?”

“As the use of social media increases and becomes an integral part of nearly every student’s life, problems arise when student expression on these sites turns into threats against the school or other students, implicating both student safety and the speaker’s right to free speech” (Hughes 208). There’s no denying that social media has become a part of most people’s daily life. We have sites like Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. These websites, or apps, allow us to express ourselves in any way possible, whether it’s supporting families who lost a member in a mass shooting, trying to impeach the latest president, or donating to those who are victims of natural disasters. It’s not always that social

Can you imagine living in a world with no social media or smartphone? No instagram, twitter, facebook or snapchat? Believe it or not, that world existed before us millennials did. According to an article found on the Pew Research Center.com, entitled “The Demographics of Social Media Users”, the amount of Facebook users is “72% of adult internet users [and] 62% of entire adult population.” Facebook along with other media outlets have easily become the norm for young adults and older adults in today’s society. The rapid growth of accessibility to social media networking was made possible from the creation and use of smart phones. The combination of social media sites and smart phone users has single handedly eliminated the need for human interactions, but also has provided a repertoire of information at our fingertips. I will discuss the following: the history of Facebook and its impact, the creation of the iPhone and its development of social media apps like Instagram, and the effects of cyberbullying. The purpose of this essay is to explore the productive qualities and destructive qualities that various social media outlets have presented to our generation.