On Friday, many schools in the United States will remain closed as a precaution, following some alleged threats of attacks and violence circulated in the last few hours on TikTok, the social network for sharing short-lived videos very popular among teenagers.
Law enforcement and other institutions do not believe that the threats are founded, and have not even been able to find specific videos containing them, but the managers of various US school districts still preferred to suspend classes to avoid taking risks. In some areas, schools will instead be regularly open but with a greater police presence and more security checks.
The potential dangers of shooting and violence are taken very seriously in the United States, where in the past year alone there have been about 150 incidents related to the use of firearms that have resulted in the deaths of 32 people and the injuries of nearly 100. individuals. At the moment, however, no elements have emerged to believe that the threats circulated on TikTok are credible, or that they ever existed.
The hypothesis is that during the week some videos circulated on the social network that mentioned this risk, but without providing evidence or references to specific threats. Other users would then have resumed those videos, in turn signaling the danger and thus leading to the production and dissemination of numerous other contents that spoke of the risk of attacks against schools for Friday 17 December.
To address the concerns of students' parents, leaders in some school districts sent email communications confirming that they found no credible threats, even after consulting with law enforcement officials.
In Baltimore, Maryland, public school officials tweeted that “law enforcement has investigated this threat and concluded that it originated in Arizona and is not credible.” Not much other information was released, and it is not clear how many first messages were hinting at some risk, nor if they really existed.
(1/3) ALERT: BCPS has been made aware of an anonymous threat posted on TikTok targeting all schools in the United States. The post alleges that there are planned school shootings that will take place on Friday, December 17.
– Baltimore County Public Schools (@BaltCoPS) December 16, 2021
Following the reports and concerns, TikTok released a brief statement in which it confirmed that it had not found “evidence of threats of this type that originated or spread” on the social network. The company confirmed that it is in contact with the police and does not underestimate “the warnings on potential violence at school”.
We handle even rumored threats with utmost seriousness, which is why we 're working with law enforcement to look into warnings about potential violence at schools even though we have not found evidence of such threats originating or spreading via TikTok.
– TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) December 16, 2021
As technology website The Verge reports, a school district in Minnesota chose to cancel classes for Friday after receiving a warning from the Public Safety Department that there was a video on TikTok involving one of its schools. A district manager then explained that the existence of the threats had been reported by some students who had seen some videos on TikTok.
It is not the first time that hard-to-verify messages circulated on the social network have had a concrete effect on schools in the United States. Last October, the challenge to “slap a teacher” became widespread among students, which turned out to be bogus. Previously, another challenge had involved the theft of some objects owned by schools, but even in this case there were only a few isolated incidents, while most of the participants had only pretended to steal something to shoot videos and try to obtain. some popularity on TikTok.
