Tracking the Yak: An Empirical Study of Yik Yak Martin Saveski, Sophie Chou, Deb Roy − Laboratory for Social Machines, MIT Media Lab
USAGE OF VULGARITIES RQ1: Is vulgar language more acceptable on Yik Yak than on Twitter?
TOPIC MODELLING RQ2: Do unique topics emerge in conversations on Yik Yak?
Frac
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aks/
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g to
this
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Topic #1 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200
DISCUSSION Limitations • Missing content of banned yaks, they may contain unique topics, • Geotagged tweets may not be representative of all tweets, • Data from a short time period: 19 days.
Future Directions • How topics vary across locations, • Yik Yak as a social signal: are there any correlations between the
activity on Yik Yak and the characteristics of the schools.
LDA topic modeling with 200 topics. The colors show the proportion of tweets (blue) and yaks (green) that belong to each topic.
We find that, on average, topics tend to be evenly split across both platforms and that there are no topics that are unique to Yik Yak.
Posts on Yik Yak are only slightly more likely to contain vulgar words than posts on Twitter. We find that yaks that contain vulgar words are 38% more likely to be downvoted and have negative ratings. Banned yaks are 61% more likely to contain vulgar words.
ACTIVITY PATTERNS
9 AM 3 AM6 PM
Time of Day
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actio
n of
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tsMidnight
YakYak Twitter
Noon
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Volu
me
(%)
TwitterYikYak
Mon Tue Wed Thr Fri Sat Sun
thinkyakyikpeople
girlguygirls
sexguys
donroommate
yakscampus
someonefuckdoesn
feel
actually
anyone
want
comment
boyfriend
class
dick
semester
exam
frat
acorn
also
sometimes
yeahgirlfriend
attractivetinder
study
studying
gpa
anchor
classes
sorority
relationship
hook
sailboatyellowperson
finals
major
mean
pike
engineeringfriends
socks
gay
probably
aren
everyone
elsecollegeshovel
pinkfriend
isn
yakarma
balloongreek
compass
yikyak h2p
horny
sexual
purple
freshman
000
penisboot
saying
icon
mushroom
upvotestudenthonestly
know
maybe
post
white
asian
racist
well
dating
exams
roommates
porn
really
flashlight
comments
binoculars
hot
find
grades
professor
bostonatlanta
austinniggagame
parkphiladelphia
francisco
niggas
san
tweet airporttwitter team
via
report
photo pittsburghcenter
great
win
season
new
todayain
wit
tweetstonight
2015city
philly
event
easter
providence
birthday
fansday
playoffs
show
international
home
play
ass
intersectionaint
oakland
follow
coach
bout
song
madison
fenway
ima
trending
series
smh
atlfavorite
trends
iphone
supplemental
flighthotel
fan
house
conference lil
logan
top20
theatre
sunday
video
playoff
sox
baseball
games
prom
bruce
jenner1st
museumtweeting
gotta
hartsfield
ave
station
readybar
mike
yall
nurse
bit album
church
love
giants
philliesapr
lmao
eatingndastreets313
Yaks vs Tweets. Yaks are dominated by words specific to college life, while tweets contain city names and sport related words.
Upvoted vs Downvoted Yaks. Upvoted yaks are characterized by mostly general and slightly positive words, while downvoted yaks contains mostly inappropriate and racist words.
feelfriendstimethanks
weeksleep
h2p
bed
alone
class yes
feeling
thank
definitelyreally
hours
yeah
weeksawkwardalsofinals
someone
relationship
anxiety
life
talk well
lot
nap
roommate
don
way
yearlove
startnetflix
haha ask
worklate
hug
find
may
contact
semestersometimes
always depression
luck feelsdependsthough
day
never
years
appreciate
good
great
even
together
studying
actuallypizza
friend
long
things
minutesprobably
sounds
thought
might
pretty
sure
early
usually
almost
hopeprofessor
studymotivation
keep makesclasses
monthstimesexams
asleep
grades
college
struggle helps
summer
awesome
much
done
finally
happyprocrastination worry
coffee
asswhite
black
anyonemiddle
bit
pike
girls
pagepussyhillary
paulkik
stormjohnfuck
jack
nigga
racistvote
sunny
dickwomenjoe
tonightsanta
fat
zbtbenindians
yeti
jimmy
madison
jerry
franksig
walkercarry
aaron
bitch
cock
suck
jon
feministsaustin
asshole
gay wanna
clinton
tiny
blacks
asian
hilaryjames
hitler
steve
cunt
dtf
hernandezmichael
reee
bitches420
geeds
taylor presidentcunningham
kappascott
ladies
phi
ross
sammy
geed
yak
ann
addyharry
party
theta smith
mike
kim
weed
chris
downvote
rand cathy
matt
george
liberal
ted
sailboat
jews
sigma
mary
jackson
chase
potter
sean
ike
slut
windy
wen
rape
snapchat
retarded
utunrated
stfu
david
thomas
burge
liberals
niggas
racism
gun
snap
anybody
jenna
jason
CONTENT ANALYSIS
Daily Posting Patterns. Twitter users tend to post earlier in the day. The peak of activity on Yik Yak is at midnight, three hours later than on Twitter.
Weekly Posting Patterns. The posting activity on Yik Yak is highest on weekdays and declines during weekends. The volume of tweets is steady across the week.
Upvoted Downvoted
Yik Yak Twitter
Laboratory for Social Machines
MIT Media Lab
ABSTRACT To investigate the effects of anonymity on user behavior, we study the new and controversial social app, Yik Yak. As a comparison, we look at Twitter, which has similar limitations on lengths of posts, but is public and global rather than anonymous and local. We find that posts on Yik Yak are only slightly more likely to contain vulgarities, and we do not find any significant bias in topic distributions on Yik Yak versus on Twitter; however, differences in vocabulary and most discriminative words used suggest the need for further analysis.
THE YIK YAK APP Yik Yak is a Twitter-like anonymous social smartphone app. Within a 10 mile radius, users can leave posts (yaks) of up to 200 characters and interact with other community member's posts. Users can upvote and downvote posts; if a post receives 5 downvotes, it is deleted, creating a self-selecting mechanism for censoring content.
DATA COLLECTION For Yik Yak, we set up scrapers to run in 5-minute intervals, with a 12-hour lookback to collect replies. For Twitter, we approximated Yik Yak hotspots by looking at geotagged tweets in a 10-mile radius around the same locations.
19 Days
20 College Campuses in USA
1.9M Yaks 1M Tweets