A strong push from Illinois College students has led to a popular social media application being banned from campus.
Yik Yak, which allows anonymous users to create and view discussion threads within a five-mile radius, has come under fire after recent posts, which made Illinois College students feel uncomfortable.
Vice President for Enrollment Management and College Marketing Stephanie Chipman says the comments could be categorized as “inappropriate”, “downright mean”, “racist” and “intolerant.”
Chipman says the controversial comments had been slowly building for quite some time.
“It was one of those things where it was becoming more and more frequent and had been apart of the social media platform for a while. Finally people just got tired of scrolling through a mix of personal information and intolerant speech,” says Chipman.
Chipman credits Illinois College students for getting the ball rolling to ban Yik Yak.
“The students came to the administration with these concerns. The administration, under President Farley’s leadership, determined we were utilizing a college network to support this social media. We followed suit with Grinnel College and Augustana College, who determined they wouldn’t support social media on their networks. So this is no longer available via our Illinois College wi-fi.”
Chipman hasn’t heard any criticism from students or staff since Yik Yak was turned off at Illinois College on March 14th.