网红黑料

Some colleges have called for the banning of Yik Yak, a social media application to which users centered around a geographic area can post anonymously. But University of Florida 网红黑料 researchers have found that the decision to ban the app may be a little hasty.

The hyperlocal app has gotten a lot of media attention for being a platform on which students have posted threats and racial slurs. Now UF researchers are calling for a broader, more systematic analysis of Yik Yak鈥檚 postings, based on their study of the early days of the app. The UF researchers鈥� study, recently published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, is the first to examine postings on the social media site.

鈥淥ur analysis was brief and focused on a specific point in time 鈥� not enough time to make an accurate representation of postings on Yik Yak,鈥� said , an assistant professor in the UF and lead author of the paper. 鈥淏ut the most intriguing finding with this study is we didn鈥檛 see what we expected to see.鈥�

That is, the researchers did not find postings, called yaks, that would warrant the site to be banned by college campuses. However, a more thorough investigation of Yik Yak鈥檚 postings could build a broader understanding of the kind of discourse happening on the application, Black said.

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 also important to understand that at the time we conducted our research, Yik Yak had not yet been used as a vehicle for making violent threats to campuses,鈥� Black said. 鈥淪ince we collected our data, the nature of use may have changed in ways that are not recognized by our analysis.鈥�

The researchers say they did find profanity and other similar language.

鈥淭here was definitely profanity and some aspects that would make anyone uncomfortable 鈥� but those aspects weren鈥檛 in any way worrisome since the profanity wasn鈥檛 directed at anyone,鈥� said , a physician in the and co-author of the paper. 鈥淚 think having a healthy skepticism is appropriate. But in this situation, among college students, fears and moves toward censorship would be unfounded.鈥�

The researchers defined 鈥渨orrisome鈥� postings as any yaks that could cause an individual to be revealed. Otherwise, Black and Thompson felt they could not label any particular posting as worrisome primarily because they lacked the understanding of the yak鈥檚 context on that campus.

The researchers collected 4,001 posts over three days from 42 different campuses across the United States. Although users have to be on a particular college campus to access that college鈥檚 Yik Yak stream, outsiders can view those posts passively, according to the app鈥檚 guidelines.

The researchers found that 45 percent of the posts focused on campus life, announcements and proclamations. About 13 percent of the posts contained profanity or vulgarities, and about 9 percent related to dating, sex and sexuality.

Black said he and Thompson avoided determining which posts could be defined as bullying because that determination would have been made out of context.

鈥淔rom an evolutionary perspective, we鈥檝e always known we can look someone in the eye and understand the place and setting that we鈥檙e talking about,鈥� Black said. 鈥淏ut now, online, we lack the ability to understand context, and when we lack that ability, we tend to invent the context ourselves, which can lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretation.鈥�

Instead, the researchers looked for public disclosure of a first or last name, or combination of a first and last name, that could be tied to a particular campus. They saw only 11 names in the volume of data they collected, five of which included both a first and a last name.

鈥淲e鈥檙e not condoning the type of rhetoric we see on the application. Profane, racist and misogynistic language is not OK,鈥� Black said. 鈥淵ik Yak may provide the opportunity to pull back the proverbial covers on underlying sentiment on campuses.鈥�

The has partnered with Yik Yak to create a customized content feed for local Yik Yak users. The UF researchers' data collection occurred prior to the partnership, and the researchers were not aware of the formal association at any stage during the research.