WtY!? is a digital documentary exploring the ethics behind the anonymous social network Yik Yak. This project is made by @leopold at Loyola University Chicago for #COMM405.
What you need to know about the Yak!
YikYak is a hyperlocal, social, and anonymous bulletin board. It was created in 2013 by two graduates from Furman University and is welcomed on America's college campuses with a growing popularity. Today the company is funded with over $11 Million.
Yakarma
Yakarama is a numerical score that represents the activity level of the user. It increases and decreases based on the number of up-votes or down-votes of other users, or by voting on the yaks of other users.
Up-/Downvote
A user can up-vote or down-vote a Yak in his area, a Yak with a high number of up-votes gets featured in the Hot tab. A vote cannot be changed and Yaks with a negative score of 5 are removed from the feed.
Comments
Users can also choose to comment on Yaks. They get notified if their Yaks received a comment and can also reply to comments by up-voting, down-voting or commenting.
Peeking
Peeking enables users to look into the Yaks of other areas. While users can look at the community feeds of every college or city, they can only interact with their local community.
On Friday night 12/04/14 a Loyola student, Mutahir Rauf, was shot in an attempted robbery. This is how the YikYak-community responded in the first 24 hours:
