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Yik Yak update: How the app came to geo-fence off US schools

April 2, 2014 By Anne 2 Comments

After Yik Yak “fenced out” her daughter’s entire high school in southern California, Diana Graber of CyberWise.org did some investigating to find out how the app was blocking use in schools. What she found out is an example of digital citizenship on the part of an app developer (see this for an example from the funding part of the mobile ecosystem).

In “Yik Yak App Makers Do the Right Thing,” Graber writes that the app’s creators, two recent university graduates in South Carolina, first changed Yik Yak’s rating to 17+, then figured out how to build geo-fences around schools and bar student use, using the same GPS technology that allows the app to create location-based “chatrooms” with 5-mile radiuses.

“Once they saw this worked [blocking users school by school], the Yik Yak team conducted a Google search to look for a company that could help them geo-fence middle and high schools across the country,” Graber writes. They found a company, Vermont-based Maponics, which had the location data that could help Yik Yak’s creators geo-fence off “nearly 85% of the US high school population,” she adds. Please see Graber’s article in the Huffington Post for more, and here is  my post on “How Yik Yak is different from other social media,” published in March.

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Filed Under: apps, mobile, Risk & Safety, School & Tech, Social Media Tagged With: apps, geo-fencing, GPS, mobile, Social Media, Yik Yak

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Comments

  1. safety software says

    May 4, 2014 at 12:08 pm

    Mobile computing is quickly becoming involved in nearly every aspect of our lives. How we find directions, how we pay for goods, how we get our news, how we socially interconnect with others, and also as a verification of who we are, and nowhere is this more evident than in today’s high-tech colleges. Students and faculty are both using mobile smart phone and mobile computing applications around campus.

    They serve as virtual credit cards, and identification for getting into dorm rooms, cafeterias, and secured areas on campus. These are both safety features, and convenience factors. Also, businesses that cater to college students can use such virtual ID systems to allow the students to get into concerts, exhibits, and sporting events – sometimes free of charge, and other times their virtual ID system will bill their college account.

    Reply

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  1. Ask KidsPrivacy: Yik Yak in High Schools | Kids Privacy says:
    October 10, 2014 at 10:17 am

    […] Yik Yak update: How the app came to geo-fence off US schools by Anne Collier […]

    Reply

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IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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