TITLE: A Quick Word on the Yik Yak Controversy
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: October 23, 2014  4:21 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 There has been some controversy on my campus recently about
 a slew of hurtful posts made on the social media application
 Yik Yak.  The following is something I wrote for my intro CS
 students, with minor changes.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Computing is often in the news, but we don't talk much about
current events in class.  That's not the focus of this course,
and we have plenty to do...

But
<A HREF="http://www.northern-iowan.org/news/view.php/851910/Yak-attack">
   the recent news story</A>
in the <EM>Northern Iowan</EM> about Yik Yak has been on my
mind.  Yik Yak is a social media app that lets people make
comments anonymously and vote on other people's comments.
This kind of app has many possible uses, some of which are
positive.  Many people live under conditions where they need
to be able to communicate anonymously.

Unfortunately, some people in the UNI area have been using it
to post hurtful comments about various groups.  This behavior
is simply mean.

Yik Yak is a social app, so the controversy is about people
and how they behave.  In this regard, my reaction has been
similar to so many others' reactions.  I am always sad to be
reminded that people actually think such things, and sadder to
know that they feel compelled to say them out loud.  To do so
anonymously is an act of cowardice.

But this controversy is also about what <B>we</B> do, because
Yik Yak is a program.  We call it an "app", but that's just
the term <I>du jour</I>.  It is a computer program.
Programmers wrote it.

We could have an interesting discussion about apps like this:
their uses, the good and bad they enable, how to grow and
guide communities of users, and so on.  I do not use Yik Yak
and am not a member of its community.  I don't know much beyond
what has been reported about it in the media.  However, I have
been part of Internet-based communities since I was in college,
and they all seem to have a lot in common with one another.
So this situation feels quite familiar to me.

I am not going to lecture a group of young people about the
ways they communicate and congregate on-line.  Let me just say
this.

When you learn to program, you inherit power to affect the world.
You can make things, programs and apps and services that real
people use.  You can choose to use your power to do good things,
to make the world better.  Or you can <EM>not</EM> choose to.
Not choosing may mean creating something whose effects you did
not consider, or whose community behaves in ways you did not
intend.

Please take your power seriously.  Think about the effects of
what you do when you write a program.  Choose wisely.
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