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Social Networks Education

Schools Across US Cancel Classes Over Unconfirmed TikTok Threats (theverge.com) 44

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: School districts across the United States are cancelling classes on Friday, December 17th due to reports of threats that are supposedly being made on TikTok. Districts in California, Texas, Minnesota, and Missouri have said they plan to close down Friday in response, according to the districts and local media reports. Elsewhere, districts have said they plan to have heightened police presence or have emailed parents to say they've been investigating the allegations. But so far, there's little evidence that the threats are credible -- or even exist. The districts and local police departments largely say they've heard about a trend referencing the possibility of shootings or bombings on December 17th, but it's not clear how many have seen a specific threat or a threat against their schools in particular.

A number of districts and law enforcement divisions say they've looked into it and don't view the threats as credible or even real. "Law enforcement agencies have investigated this threat and determined that it originated in Arizona and is not credible," Baltimore County Public Schools wrote on Twitter. "Currently, there have been no threats to any of the schools in Mexico, [Missouri]," wrote a Missouri school district. "There have been no local, credible threats," Ohio's Milford Exempted Village School District wrote to parents. In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy tweeted, "there are no known specific threats against New Jersey schools."

The reports of threats on TikTok may be self-perpetuating. Videos being posted to TikTok warn others that they should skip school on December 17th due to supposed threats of shootings or bombings, which seem to have prompted others to create similar videos. And now that schools are canceling classes in response to those supposed threats, a new wave of videos have popped up with additional warnings based on both the supposed claims and the actual, factual cancellations of some school classes. TikTok says it has not identified any videos making specific threats. "We have not found evidence of such threats originating or spreading via TikTok," the company wrote in a tweet Thursday afternoon. TikTok said it is working with law enforcement to look into the warnings with "utmost seriousness," nonetheless.

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Schools Across US Cancel Classes Over Unconfirmed TikTok Threats

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  • No incidents? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 17, 2021 @05:11PM (#62092163)

    Been keeping an eye on this since hearing about it last night. I haven't seen a single report where there was an incident. It's beyond time for the government to take a look at Tik Tok and these stupid fucking challenges. Tik Tok has the data, they can follow the messages and find where this originated from. Then we just need to televise on every media possible the public capture and sentencing to life in prison of this person and let the world know this will happen to the next person who wants to play a prank that not only creates millions of dollars of expense but added stress and anxiety to millions of people.

  • by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Friday December 17, 2021 @05:11PM (#62092165)

    Schools were open where I live. They've arrested a bunch of kids locally over the last few days for this. Any school that closed based on this just gave this kids what they wanted.

    • This one viral. That means one or two kids posting vague threats wouldn't have caused it. If it's spread it spread because it was highly plausible. We should probably be asking ourselves what that means and what we should do about it.
      • Do you have some credible evidence of an actual threat? Did something crazy actually happen today?

        Birds aren't real but random social media posts are, for sure.

      • Just one kid in their parent's basement sent out the initial "challenge"/"threat". Like everything else that goes viral, it spread not because it was plausible, but because they struck someone's nerve or tickled their fancy. In this case they played on fears and it spread like wildfire because people can't stop to think. They see something on social media and if it strikes a nerve with them or enforces their myopic point of view, before they even put 2 seconds of thought into it, they've shared it. The

        • by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

          Tik Tok needs to cough up the first post of this and that person needs to answer to their crime.

          Given they're under age, I'm sure they'll get a stern talking-to and won't ever do it again.

          Meanwhile, 3.6 million new kids are born in the United States each year who's never learned that lesson.

        • There's no need for any kid to take the risk of sending out a threat. All they need to do is send out a video claiming that unspecified other people have made the threat. You can make something go viral more easily if you pretend everybody else is already talking about it.

      • This one viral. That means one or two kids posting vague threats wouldn't have caused it. If it's spread it spread because it was highly plausible. We should probably be asking ourselves what that means and what we should do about it.

        Right, because fake stories and urban legends never spread on social media. Flashing headlights will cause gang members to kill you as an initiation rite, white vans are used by child kidnappers, and Craig Shergold is still dying of cancer.

      • If it's spread it spread because it was highly plausible.

        Sure it is. How did that work out with the "Momo Challenge" hoax?

    • They've arrested a bunch of kids locally over the last few days for this.

      That won't stop this.

      Arrest their parents.

      That will stop this.

      • by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Friday December 17, 2021 @07:44PM (#62092601)

        Because the kids will do better as orphans? WTF

        • If their parents are shit at parenting then as orphans at least they will have a chance to get decent parents.

          It's not much of a chance, but then, they don't have much of a chance to get any decent parenting from their actual parents.

          • Do you have kids? Were you ever a teen?

            It is well known that developing teen brains contribute to bad decision making and risk taking. Teens are going to do dumb things just because they are teens.
            http://headsup.scholastic.com/... [scholastic.com]

            You can blame the parents but the kids have minds of their own and are going to make mistakes. Obviously some mistakes are more serious than others. What really happened here was some social media posts, no one got hurt and no one was really intended to get hurt. The kids got to go

  • I can’t help thinking these TikTok “challenges” are orchestrated by someone who stands to gain from the school closings and loss of faith in public schools. Sure, there’s an obvious gun safety component, but I think it’s more than that. I think kids are being duped into shitting where they eat for someone else’s gain. That makes it doubly awful and sad.
  • Social Media (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) on Friday December 17, 2021 @05:16PM (#62092187) Journal

    Social Media was a bad idea

    • by Joviex ( 976416 )

      Social Media was a bad idea

      Socializing was a bad idea.

    • Social media is just a tool. It's people raised in an increasingly rancid, paranoid, and authoritarian society that's the problem.

    • Yes, those kids should have to use a pay phone at the gas station to make a "get out of school bomb threat," just as God intended.
    • "Social media" is not the problem: it's merely a reflection of its users. People are the problem. Consider any social metric: the distribution curve mandates that more than half of the people measured will be average, or less than, in that capacity. As a species, as things stand, we're doomed. Idiocracy brought to fruition.
      • Social media may not be "the problem", but it sure as hell is extremely effective at exacerbating the problem, more so than any other recent technological advance.

      • Netflix has a documentary: The Social Dilemma, you really should go watch it.

        It has perhaps the most succinct explanation of how destructive an "engagement algorithm" is when you use it across a global scale population.

        Oh, you think that *MAYBE* JUST MAYBE the moon landing was faked? We know what'll really keep you engaged and scrolling: the flat earth society.

        You think that MAYBE JUST MAYBE a virus could have escaped a lab? Here, we'll feed you non-stop stories about how all the vaccine does is cause he

  • by Anonymous Coward

    “Law enforcement agencies have investigated this threat and determined that it originated in Arizona and is not credible,”

    Geez, if only we had known earlier that it originated in Arizona, all the closures could have been avoided. People, when you have a rumor that originates in Arizona, you should state that part of the rumor first!

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Lets all just realize the real threat to humanity is TikTok itself.

    I don't even know why people use it, you gain nothing and 99.9% of the content on there is stupid vapid BS. You can't monetize content or anything. Its existence is pointless.

    If I had to guess I would say YouTube caused this situation by being the dickholes that they are. Constantly shadow banning for no reason, blocking, strikes, stealing revenue, whatever stupid BS causing people to leave the platform. It's a shithole.

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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell

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