There are claims that a meme on TikTok encourages young people to call in violent threats against their own schools on December 17th. The meme caused some school districts to cancel classes. Strangely, Gizmodo couldn't find a single example of a violent threat against a school on the social media platform.
Local news outlets across the U.S. reported Thursday that school districts and police stations have been made aware of a dangerous meme on TikTok.
There is a small sample of the headlines.
The only problem? There is no primary source for this claim. There are many statements from the police departments. We haven't found a single instance of this claim on the social media platform.
The police in Minnesota claimed that there were threats, but they couldn't say anything because they couldn't figure out who the poster was.
The Morrison County Sheriff's Office said on Thursday that it had received a report of a social media post that may have identified the Little Falls, Royalton and Pierz school districts. The post has not been found or verified by authorities.
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The Beltrami County Sheriff's Office said there were no known or identified threats that were credible in the county.
TikTok claims it hasn't found anything.
The company said in a statement that they are working with law enforcement to look into warnings about potential violence at schools even though they have not found evidence of such threats.
A local TV news reporter in Missouri posted a video on TikTok that claimed that videos like the one about school violence were going to be popular.
The kid in the video is reacting to the local media hype and isn't making a threat. The text in the video is for the people who go to school on December 17 That is not a threat. A kid is praying for people.
That doesn't mean the meme didn't exist. It is possible that TikTok has deleted offending content and the company's communications team is confused about whether or not the platform found anything. It is plausible that angry and frustrated kids make vague threats about their school every day, but it is not a meme.
The founder of TechDirt wrote a post about suspicious claims of people inspiring violence on TikTok. His conclusion was that the hype given to the stories by mainstream news outlets was more important than the attention that violent meme were getting on the platform. This could be a similar situation if the new meme existed.
In Missouri, a school district has canceled classes today because of concerns that the TikTok meme could be real and students might be planning violence. How realistic is the threat? It's likely no more credible than any other day. People must be alert. School shootings are not uncommon. December 17 will likely be the same day as any other.
