Following an ambiguous threat made on Yik Yak against Faner Hall early Wednesday, the Department of Public Safety increased its presence near the building.

SIU spokeswoman Rae Goldsmith said university police received multiple reports about the post on the social media app, which shows anonymous messages within a 10-mile radius.

“They’re not sure there’s any credibility to the report and they’re investigating,” she said. “Our understanding is that it was a fairly vague unspecific threat related to Faner that we’ve had several people report.”

Advertisement

Goldsmith said Yik Yak is a problem many college campuses deal with.

“This is an ongoing issue with Yik Yak on colleges everywhere that people can post anonymous things,” she said. “They’re very hard to track down. They can post things that scare people and we hope people understand that it is not necessarily a valuable communications tool.”

While the original post is no longer on the app, someone posted saying: “Hey if you have class in faner tomorrow do not go. Someone just posted in here not to go. Sounds like they are going to shoot up faner. And NO THIS IS NOT A JOKE.”

One user responded saying: “I saw that too! Idk how or who to report it to!” Another said: “I called the police.”

On Twitter, user @BrookeBukovsky tweeted: “There’s a cop in faner carrying a big rifle… Okay den. He went straight to the bathroom by the museum. #weird.”

“Somebody threatening to shoot up faner toma? Yup won’t catch me on campus,” user @Born_SelfMade tweeted.

This is just one of many times threats have been made on the anonymous app.

Advertisement*

According to the Washington Post, two University of Southern Mississippi students were charged with felonies because of Yik Yak posts in September. In October, a Towson University student was arrested after threatening to carry out an attack he said would be “Virginia Tech part 2” on the anonymous application, according to the Baltimore Sun.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

Luke Nozicka can be reached at [email protected].