Yik Yak, the locational open forum app, was busy following the Paris attacks. The app is like a bathroom stall where you can scrawl any clever or funny graffiti you want. However, on the night of the Paris attacks, instead of writing on the stall, Yik Yak looked like something you’d find in the toilet.
An alarming amount of anti-Muslim and Islamophobic messages littered the news feed, many of them blaming the nature of Islam itself for motivating these attacks. Due to Yik Yak’s geographical range and popularity among university students, most, if not all, posts of this nature would have come from Carleton or University of Ottawa students.
Hiding behind anonymity to express views you would likely never have the stones to say in public should not be a part of a modern and multicultural community. Most concerning, however, was the seeming inability of many posters to differentiate between ISIS and the teachings of Islam.
The idea of the Ku Klux Klan serving as a blanket representation of Christianity would seem almost as stupid as the KKK’s beliefs themselves, beliefs whose lunacy still pales in comparison to the unfathomable idiocy ISIS spews.
This makes me wonder how anyone with two brain cells to rub together could consider peaceful followers of Islam and ISIS as one and the same.
Yik Yak and other anonymous forums are breeding grounds for bigotry and ignorance, giving small minds and big mouths centre stage. But in light of this fact, many messages that night also defended the overwhelming majority of moderate Muslims.
The freedom that anonymity provides is easily abused. It’s unfortunate that this abuse exists on campus, but the presence of people who will defend victims of it is refreshing.
This is representative of the individuals who hopefully make up the majority of the Carleton population, as stand-up and culturally-aware citizens.
