By Alex Randall, randala2@miamioh.edu
This past week, students joined in a somewhat humorous reaction to the university not canceling classes due to inclement weather.
For a substantial length of time, Miami university students who use the app "Yik Yak" engaged in a drawn out roasting of Miami University President David Hodge.
Some of these yaks included "Hodge believes it's butter" and "Hodge reminds the teacher to collect homework assignments."
For the most part, these "yaks" were benign and exposed some of the more humorous perceptions of Miami students toward Hodge. However, there were certain yaks that could be considered less "good spirited."
These "yaks" raise the question: How much freedom from accountability should yakers have? On one hand, the appeal of the app lies in its freedom from accountability. Students feel confident saying anything they want. On the other hand, this lends itself to potentially threatening and abusive posts with no way to trace the validity or the person posting it.
This question has been brought up in previous articles on The Miami Student and becomes more prevalent when users of Yik Yak post abusive yaks. One such example of this abuse of Yik Yak occurred several months ago when bomb threats were made on the Miami campus. Fortunately, nothing became of the threats. But it's an example of how using Yik Yak requires balance.
In my opinion, the freedom of yakers to post anonymously should be maintained. It's what makes the app work so well. However, real threats or reports of crime must be dealt with swiftly and decisively. As for Hodge, hopefully he realizes that these yakers, for the most part, were just having some good-spirited fun in the hopes of getting those classes canceled. And maybe these yaks are to thank for our actual snow day?