Yahoo Answers, home to the Internet’s entertaining answers to the most bizarre questions, has finally reached its peak. On May 4, 2021, Yahoo Answers will officially come to an end after around 16 years of operation. The platform was first created in 2005 as a medium for the curious and confused to reach out to the general public and seek advice for their everyday needs. Members of Yahoo Answers required little to no expertise, and people could receive a diverse range of answers to their questions. Users were able to ask embarrassing questions that they always pondered while also staying anonymous.
A farewell note was sent to current Yahoo Answers members, breaking down why Yahoo was shutting down this long-running platform. In the message, Yahoo stated that it had “decided to shift [their] resources away from Yahoo answers to focus on products that better serve our members and deliver on Yahoo’s promise of providing premium trusted content.” They also expressed that the website was becoming “less popular over the years” and that “the needs of [their] members have changed.” Additionally, this is not Yahoo’s first time removing their older services. In 2019, Yahoo deleted 20 years of content from Yahoo Groups. In the same year, Flickr—an old photo storage website that Yahoo later sold—removed 15 years of photos.
Starting on April 20, the website will no longer allow anyone to submit any questions and answers to the forum, but they will still have access to view current postings until May 4. Following that day, Yahoo will immediately direct its visitors to its main homepage. In memory of all the website’s craziest content, the platform is allowing members to download a copy of the questions and answers they have posted until June 30. However, they won’t be able to access content from other members. Users will not be able to archive anything else from the forum, and Yahoo will delete all things associated with the website from the internet forever.
On the other side of the Internet, conservatives see this removal as another form of censorship, seeing that many used this site to spread their right-wing agenda. They feel as though they are being “silenced” and that they’re one of the only sites that post “the truth regarding the left’s degeneracy.” Although Yahoo’s official note does not state the supposed claim, some conservatives still feel that the company is targeting them as one of the main reasons for the removal of this question-and-answer service.
As soon as the shutdown announcement went public, people across all platforms hurried to share the funniest and most odd questions they have encountered on the forum. Some questions include various spellings of people asking, “am I pregnant?”, a user asking if humans “can milk Gushers to make fruit juice” and another asking, “what if one day the cows fight back?” It was unknown if the questions asked were either genuine or another way of trolling, but all in all, it brought years of entertainment for internet users worldwide.
Want to see more HCFSU? Be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Youtube and Pinterest!