Parents Heard San Clemente High School on Lock Down for a Bomb Threat

On Thursday, March 7 rumor spread with lightning speed to San Clemente High School (SCHS) parents that their students were on lock down because of a bomb threat.  

As it turned out, that threat was directly tied to a post on an internet app called Yik Yak where users are allowed to post anonymously. This ability to post and hide behind the curtain reportedly brings out the worst in some teenagers.

“Kids are using it to cyberbully each other, posting vicious hate threats, bomb threats to schools and other threats of violence,” said Anna Mendez from the National Association of People Against Bullying (NAPAB.org). Mendez lost her beloved son to bullying within the Capistrano School District in 2009.

As a result, NAPAB has called for Yik Yak to be shut down in the SCHS and has already contacted Apple to request the app be eliminated from their iTunes store.

Mendez has also reached out to other high school parents requesting they email yikyakapp@gmail.com, which goes directly to the Yik Yak site, and ask that the app be shut down. Parents from across the U.S. are urged to do the same for their city or town.

The Chicago Tribune reported on March 7, 2014 that several schools in IL are “warning students to stay away from this app.” ABC7 Chicago reported that on Thursday night Yik Yak users in their area were disabled by the company itself after administrators at two different high schools sent warning letters to parents.

Yik Yak does not require a signup, profile or password to join and connects people within a 5- to 10-mile radius by using their current location. Users believe they are posting anonymously.

Victoria Mendez, President of the Cool 2 Be Kind Club at SCHS, a student-run club that provides safe haven for bullied students said, “Yik Yak is a platform for bullying.  People know they can say whatever they want and get away with it, and it brings out the worst in them.  App developers need to think about what the technology will ultimately be used for and take precautions to avoid situations like these.”

Two students at South Carolina’s Furman University, Brooks Buffington and Tyler Droll, are reported to be the developers of the Yik Yak app. Their iTunes description says, “What happens on Yik Yak, stays on Yik Yak.”

When Anna Mendez contacted them through their posted gmail address regarding the bomb threat at SCHS, she received an email response signed by the ‘Yik Yak team’ that read, “We have worked closely with local law enforcement to help find the user who caused all of that to happen. We have also disabled the app's use at SCHS. We are doing all in our power to prevent users under college-age from violating our terms and using our app.”

Although the app states that you have to be 17 years old to download it, this rule is not enforced. People monitoring this app have found frequent use of sexual content, nudity, profanity and crude humor. Although users believe they cannot be traced, ChicagoNow reported that police arrested a juvenile as a result of a Yik Yak post just this past week.