Yik Yak serves as somewhat of a forum for people who believe that the world has become “too sensitive” to people’s opinions. This anonymity allows people to say the most hateful things, and complain when people say that those things are actually hateful.

There seems to be this overwhelming belief from two or three individuals on this app that if you're unable to publicly announce your bigotry, sexism, racism or trans-phobia without being lambasted by the socially conscious, then people are limiting your free speech. And this means they should be less sensitive about people’s opinions. To those two people, I would like to express my public opinion about your public opinion.

Free speech is not freedom from public judgement. In fact, freedom of speech has nothing to do with public opinion whatsoever. Free speech protects you from a fascist dictatorship telling you that you are not allowed to tell us how you feel. However, if we don’t like how you feel, then we are entitled to tell you how wrong you are. Not everyone agrees with everything you have to say. In fact, you're probably in the process of disagreeing with me right now.

You might ask, “Why can’t I say what’s on my mind and not be judged for it?” Well, avoiding public criticism for your actions would probably be limiting the free speech of others. If you say something that is disagreeable, people probably won’t like you for it.

The price of freedom of speech is accepting criticism in whatever form. This criticism might be businesses deciding not to associate themselves with you, which is not limiting your ability to say what you want, only limiting your ability to find people who agree with you and want to be around you.

You might also ask, “Why would you want to remove places like Yik Yak where we can express our opinion without being judged?” Yik Yak’s anonymity allows an anonymous person to verbally abuse entire groups of people. Anything that you say that is actually relevant and intelligible should be able to be said anonymous or not. Otherwise, it probably shouldn’t be said in public.

After reading this, your final and most potent question would probably be, “If free speech isn’t being able to say all of these hateful things in anonymity without being judged then, what is free speech?” Well, hypothetical Yik Yak user, I’m glad you asked. Freedom of speech is the ability to speak one’s thoughts without fear of government retaliation or censorship.

This technically means that if an organization decides that they no longer want to be associated with your opinion, they have not technically censored you. If someone happens to tell you that you're a terrible person for what you say, again, that is not a violation of free speech. But then again, you shouldn't be sensitive about other people's opinions.