[zonkerdonker]

Anyone remember YikYak? I was in university at the time, the explosive growth was wild. After the inevitable bullying, racism, threats, doxxing, that came with the anonymous platform, YikYak enabled geofencing to disable the app on middle and high school grounds.

I think every social media platform with an "age limit" should be required to do this as well. And open it up, so that anyone can create their own disabling geofence on their property. How great would it be to have a snapchat free home zone? Or FB, or tiktok

[nancyminusone]

At my college, someone got kicked out for yikyacking "gonna shoot all black people a smile tomorrow" and everyone quickly realized exactly how anonymous it really was after the guy was found a few hours later.

Thing is, there was a comma between "people" and "a smile" which made his poorly thought out joke read a lot differently. Dumb way to throw away your education.

[lotsofpulp]

I don’t understand. The “joke” would be if there was no comma. Putting a comma seems like they wanted to cause panic, and feign ignorance later.

[nancyminusone]

Yes, that's what he tried to argue (it was a joke bro) in the lawsuit that followed, to try to get back in. He lost.

Personally, I think he just flubbed it. At the time, memes like "I'm gonna cut you <line break> up some vegetables" were popular. Can't expect a dumbass edgelord to have good grammar.

Either way, it was a stupid thing to do and he paid for it.

[wilsonjholmes]

Crazy Smart (;

Edit for clarity: /s - I went to the same university which had the above slogan.

[pmarreck]

So basically, if he hadn't added the comma, he'd still be at college.

So he got kicked out because of an extra comma, which he added to make it even more edgy, at the cost of reducing plausible deniability to nearly zero.

[alwa]

I’m not sure which college was involved here, but if I were the person adjudicating this, I imagine the outcome would not have hinged on the comma.

[pmarreck]

Well, without the comma it can be entirely plausibly framed as a nice statement, no?

[m3rc]

That is not exactly how disciplinary or legal procedures tend to go. The intention is clear here.

[pmarreck]

Nope, it isn't. Not without the comma. And especially without context.

[myko]

I'm being obtuse but I don't see the comma thing making the "joke" come off differently, what am I missing?

[LeifCarrotson]

The phrase "shooting a smile at someone" means to briefly or quickly glance at someone while smiling. Perhaps "shot a glare in his direction" is more familiar?

Depending on the location of the comma, the speaker is either planning to make happy gestures at people, or killing people with a firearm which makes them happy.

[koolba]

To shoot a smile means to smile at someone. So the pun is that he is going to smile at every black person he sees.

[jmathai]

We block a number of online properties including Snapchat and YouTube using NextDNS.

We have different profiles for different devices to allow, for example, YouTube on the television but not on kids tablets or phones.

[soperj]

that's only good for the devices using your internet though no? not if they have data.

[jmathai]

I install a configuration profile on their devices which forces NextDNS regardless if they're on my wifi, LTE or their friend's wifi.

https://apple.nextdns.io/

[pmarreck]

why would you give a kid data? (as in cell data, presumably) I guess, to be able to helicopter them from anywhere...

Apple devices would still have parental controls in that case, though, I think?

Cellphone companies should really step up, here.

[jmathai]

Even if they don't have data ... they may use someone else's wifi. NextDNS configuration profiles address this - https://apple.nextdns.io/

[pmarreck]

oooh, this is good. I am bookmarking this for the future (my son is only 3.9)

[dang]

One past thread: Thank You, Yakkers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14223199 - April 2017 (108 comments)

Lots of comments: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[btown]

Ah, a world where this is taken to an extreme might even bring back the mythical https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place rapidly disappearing in the American suburb and city alike... because it becomes the only place in the community where property owners don't geofence to forbid social media use!

https://theweek.com/culture-life/third-places-disappearing

But of course, social media companies will pour incredible amounts of money into political campaigns long before they let anything close to this happen.

[rollcat]

Technological solutions to societal problems just don't work.

Some $EVIL technology being fashioned to harm individuals isn't to blame - the companies behind that technology are. You can pile up your geofencing rules, the real solution lies somewhere between you deleting the app and your government introducing better regulation.

[Swenrekcah]

By this logic technological “progress” can not cause societal problems?

Which of course it can so why can’t a part of the solution be technological?

[vacuity]

It can be, but I think practically it can't be. Maybe that doesn't fit into a nice logical statement, but there you have it. Or: when you build yourself a constantly-accelerating, never-stopping racecar and get on it, it's hard to build a steering wheel or brake pedal for it. Or or: it's a lot easier to get into a deep hole than to get out of one.

[kennywinker]

Geofencing around schools is the kind of thing you might see if government attempted to regulate this

[ClumsyPilot]

Don’t we geofence sale of alcohol and tobacco around schools?

[vkou]

I think vending machines dispensing whiskey shooters would be a great addition to any classroom.

People clearly want the product, and I would clearly stand to make a lot of money from it.

[kgwxd]

You want every (any?) app knowing your exact location at all times? That's not how we "geofence" the sale of physical goods.

[zonkerdonker]

I imagine this could be set up on the operating system side. All the apps would receive is a go/no go signal, not fine coordinates

[rollcat]

That would be a good start. I guess someone at Apple has already been brainstorming about it for a while. I still think geofencing is a poor bandaid to patch a problem we've created in the first place. Just like notification filtering rules, it's like liquor vendors referring you to addiction therapy.

[anon84873628]

Or maybe the schools just don't let kids bring phones in at all.

[palmotea]

> Technological solutions to societal problems just don't work.

Ehhh, that's just a poorly thought out slogan whose "truth" comes from endless repetition. Societal problems can have technical origins or technical enablers. In which case a technical solution might work to make things better.

So no, there's no technical solution to "people being mean to each other," but there is a technical solution to, say, "people being meaner to each other because they can cloak themselves with anonymization technology."

[rollcat]

> Societal problems can have [...] technical enablers.

That was my point.

> [...] there is a technical solution to, say, "people being meaner to each other because they can cloak themselves with anonymization technology."

I've never used (or even heard of) YikYak before, but what solution are you suggesting exactly? De-anonymisation? How would you achieve that? Suppose you have a magical^W technological de-anonymising wand, how would that not cut both ways?

So YikYak enabled geofencing, to alleviate the problem they've caused in the first place? But let's suppose they didn't do that.

How could I, as an average parent trying to protect my child, employ such a solution on my own? Could my tech-savvy neighbor help me somehow? Is there a single person outside of YikYak who can build a solution that any parent could use?

[kgwxd]

Geo fencing requires constantly sharing location data.