One of the biggest changes in social networking in the past year is the move toward anonymity. The mass surveillance awareness, alongside more leaks of conversations and images, has made teenagers switch from apps like Facebook and Twitter to Snapchat and Yik Yak.

It looks like there is another anonymous message board hitting US schools, called Streetchat. Similar to Yik Yak, it does not monitor anyone who uses the app, but Streetchat offers the service out to anyone, regardless of location, allowing more people to join one specific board.

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Yik Yak has been banned from a lot of US schools, due to its anonymous system leading to bullying. Streetchat looks to have the same judgement, with schools already banning the app and even teenagers expressing their discomfort with the amount of bullying on the app.

In the video released by Kayla Miller, 16, on her Facebook page, she asks "What is going on in our school? Have we not learned? Our generation, have we not learned, everyone in the world deserves a place"

Miller is not alone in the fight to get Streetchat out of schools and if possible, blocked from the iOS Apps Store. Teachers and parents have expressed discomfort in the ability to cyber-bully others, without any consequences for the bullies.

The way Streetchat works is by uploading images onto the site, these images then get upvoted or downvoted, and may have a text caption alongside. In most schools, the majority of upvoted content is bullying, harassment and sexualized photos.

There is a topic for debate about why these apps are all of a sudden becoming extremely popular. Why has the US become so happy with these anonymous styles of text and image boards, and not happy with the tools already provided like Facebook and Twitter?   

TagsStreetchat, Yik Yak, image boards, bullying, cyber-bullying, anonymous social networks