people tyler droll ceo brooks buffington coo industry internet employees 60 website yikyakapp.com written in java objective c citation needed registration none launched 2013 current status online yik yak is a social media smartphone application . it is available for ios and android and it allows people to create and view discussion threads within a 5 mile radius termed yaks by the application . 1 it is similar to other anonymous sharing apps such as nearby but differs from others such as whisper in that it is intended for sharing primarily with those in proximity to the user . 2 all users have the ability to contribute to the stream by writing responding and voting up or voting down liking or disliking yaks . the developers of the app tyler droll and brooks buffington are both graduates from furman university in greenville south carolina . the two started collaborating when they were placed into the same class where they learned how to code iphone apps . 3 after graduating from furman university they decided to go full time with the project . droll dropped out of medical school just before it started and buffington put his finance career on hold . 4 the two released the app in november 2013 and twelve months later it was ranked as the 9th most downloaded social media app in the united states . 5 droll and buffington have continued their work on yik yak taking measures to ensure its sustainability . 3 on january 20 2016 yik yak announced the web version of the app is available . 6 an update in august of 2016 in which the app mandated the use of profiles and removed anonymity was not well received by the user base and it now has a 1 star rating on the ios app store . contents 1 history and financing 2 function 3 features 4 controversies 5 use in us politics 6 see also 7 references 8 external links history and financing edit yik yak was launched in 2013 after ceo tyler and coo brooks graduated from furman university . yik yak was originally funded by atlanta ventures and offices based in the atlanta tech village the city s premier startup incubator . citation needed as of april 22 2014 the company announced that it had secured 1.5 million in funding from various companies such as vaizra investments dcm kevin colleran and azure capital partners . this funding came five months after yik yak was founded . this funding was intended to enhance the app and to increase the amount of users both in the united states and overseas . 7 on june 30 2014 a little over two months after the initial 1.5 million yik yak secured 10 million from its previous investors along with renren lianhe holdings and tim draper . 8 during the fall of 2014 with exponential user growth yik yak secured over 60 million from sequoia capital and other investors . this gave yik yak a valuation over 350 million less than one year after launch . citation needed function edit yik yak works by combining the technologies of gps and instant messaging allowing users to microblog to other nearby users . before loading messages the yik yak app determines the user s location and groups them into pockets of 1.5 mile 2.4 kilometre radius zones . within these zones anyone inside the radius can post and read other people s yaks . yik yak is effectively an online bulletin board . 2 the developers use a technology called geofencing to attempt to minimize cyberbullying . geofencing allows certain areas such as middle schools and high schools to be fenced off using gps technology . the app is then no longer accessible in the fenced off area . 9 yik yak allows small communities to provide commentary on events in real time . when senator ted cruz gave his speech announcing his bid for president at liberty university it was considered safe from protests because of the university s conservative background but this did not prevent ridicule on yik yak . 10 features edit yakarma yakarma is a numerical score aimed to measure the active success of a user . the number increases and decreases based on the response of other users in a user s area to their yaks . yakarma changes depending on the number of downvotes or upvotes replies and comments on a user s post . receiving downvotes will negatively affect a user s yakarma while upvotes increase it . yakarma is also affected based on upvoting or downvoting other users yaks . 11 upvote downvote these are essentially user ratings on a yak . if a post becomes popular it will receive more upvotes than downvotes and display a positive number next to it . if votes on a post reach a value of 5 it becomes deleted permanently . 11 peek this feature allows users to anonymously view other yik yak community feeds . initially the only other areas users could peek into were us and international colleges . with the october 20 2014 app update users can now peek into any college or city in the world . when users view other yik yak feeds they can see other user s posts but they can not vote or post into that community from their device . users can only post in their local yik yak community . 11 other top yaks this simply shows the google image result page from searching the work yak . usually just pictures of yaks the animal . 11 photos this feature allows users to includes pictures in their yaks . the company announced that photos are moderated and no inappropriate content illegal content or faces are allowed in local feeds . 12 more specifically these collections will display a grid of popular photographs submitted from anyone in a specific location . 13 hidden features yik yak also contains a word filter . when some words are posted it will remind the user they are offensive and ask them if they still wish to post it . sometimes they will also let the user post but take it down after a set time . if this is the case the post will be removed almost instantaneously . this can be activated after certain words are used . controversies edit one of the biggest criticisms of social media sites and applications is their inherent potential to feed the growing amount of cyberbullying . 14 due to the widespread bullying and harassment committed through yik yak many schools and school districts have taken action to ban the app . these include several chicago school districts 15 norwich university in vermont 16 eanes independent school district in texas 17 lincoln high school district in rhode island 18 new richmond school district in ohio 19 shawnigan lake school in canada and pueblo county school district in colorado . 20 tatum high school in new mexico banned cell phone use from the school due to yik yak 21 and the student government association at emory university in georgia attempted to ban the app across campus but failed to do so after immense backlash from students . 22 on may 13 2015 santa clara university president father engh released a statement to all students after several racist remarks were posted on yik yak . he writes hate speech not to be confused with free speech has no place at santa clara university because it violates the dignity and respect with which each member of our community is entitled to be treated . hurtful comments directed at individuals or groups diminish us all and create a divisive atmosphere of distrust and suspicion . 23 this highlights the ethical controversy of cyberbullying and racism within the social media app . on october 3 2014 the huffington post published an editorial by ryan chapin mach titled why your college campus should ban yik yak which asserted that yik yak s anonymous messaging boards are like bathroom stalls without toilets . they re useless they re sources of unhelpful or harmful conversations and they re a complete eyesore . 24 to remedy the cases of bullying in middle and high schools around the country droll and buffington amended the application to include geofences that work in the background . these unseen fences disable the application within their defined borders . at first these boundaries were installed manually by the developers but it quickly became clear they would need outside assistance . they found this assistance in a vermont based company known as maponics . maponics builds and defines geographic boundaries . they happened to already have nearly 85 % of the country s high schools mapped making it easy to block access to yik yak in those areas . 9 the fences are currently in effect mainly to disable the app on all middle and high school grounds throughout the country . if the app is opened within one of these areas the user is displayed a message along the lines of it looks like you re trying to use yik yak on a middle school or high school grounds . yik yak is intended for people college aged and above . the app is disabled in this area . 25 the frequency of bullying and harassment that happens on yik yak might be exaggerated by media stories citing specific incidents . researchers have identified how yik yak is mostly used as a positive way to explore racial ethnic and sexual identities and to build a sense of community on campus . 26 others have identified how yik yak gives marginalized students a voice on campus . 27 in 2015 yik yak gained attention by being the subject of preventing a suicide attempt at the college of william and mary . 28 yik yak has been praised and criticized regarding preventing suicide . on one hand it gives people an outlet to share what they are thinking and in many cases they receive support to seek help . on the other hand due to its anonymity the ability for others to help is limited . there has been controversy over the legality of its anonymity and what role yik yak should play in sharing that information . in december 2014 security researchers discovered and demonstrated a potential attack on the service where a yik yak user could have their account compromised and be deanonymised having their identity revealed if an attacker was using the same wifi network . 29 30 in february 2015 yik yak was exposed for systematically downvoting and deleting posts that mention competitors . the automatic system downvotes and deletes any posts that contain words that are associated with the names for other apps used by university students including fade unseen erodr and sneek . the downvoting algorithm which assigns downvotes on regular intervals until the posts are deleted appears designed to mislead users to thinking their posts are unpopular with their peers rather than censored by yik yak itself . 31 in december 2015 the slog and the seattle times reported that a western washington university student had been arrested and released on bail after calling for the lynching of the student body president of the university . the racist threats were posted on yik yak . 32 33 use in us politics edit digital director of precision strategy matthew mcgregor has suggested the 2016 presidential election could be the yik yak election . 34 see also edit erodr whisper nearby skout references edit legal . yik yak . 2015 07 14 . retrieved 2015 07 14 . yik yak is an anonymous messaging app that allows users to create and view posts called yaks within a 5 mile radius . a b yik yak . archived from the original on 21 august 2014 . retrieved 29 november 2014 . a b knibbs kate mar 21 2014 .