Hello I am a resident assistant and I have seen very harmful effects causes by the app, “Yik Yak.” 
As universities and schools are opening up, you would expect a great incline of mental health issues. Rather than that, I have seen extreme mental decline that can be contributed to one app, Yik Yak. Many relations are being ruined  within many communities between peers because people don’t know who can talk poorly about each other. These relations have caused many problems within my residence hall as I see my residents having their names slandered. I have to monitor an app just to protect my residents. I’m sure this has resulted in an increase in suicide attempts across the country because just in the university I attend there is increases in the number of attempts. Not only has their been increases of suicide attempts but there can be careers ruined because of this app. I have had multiple friends reached out by graduate schools they got accepted into asking what these claims were about. False accusations can ruin careers and people can write them anonymously on this app without consequences while potentially ruining careers. 
I have also had people organize committing vandalism together on this app. I have had friends get their stuff stolen and had food thrown at an RA’s door and there are receipts of yik yaks that encouraged these actions. 
When going out to contact yik yak about these reasons encouraging them to be shut down, they had said, “This definitely violates the Community Guardrails and should be taken down” and “We will immediately take it down once our moderators see it.” This means that the app won’t immediately remove the harmful content rather they need a moderator can check it. I have frequently had to rally friends together to remove such posts and report them and the yaks still remain up from 30mins to 5hrs. This is very harmful as some claims have dropped phone numbers, names, and addresses while making claims of being sexual abusers that can be false. So there is chance for more than 5 hrs for someone to receive hate after potential false claims. 
With there being evidence if this app being shut down once, I believe that this app can be shut down a SECOND time. I believe that with enough support we can shut down this app forever.