Due to reports of threats allegedly posted on TikTok, school districts across the United States are canceling classes on Friday, December 17th. School districts across the United States are canceling classes on Friday, December 17th due to reports of threats allegedly posted on TikTok. Districts in California, Texas, Minnesota, and Missouri have announced that they will close. There is little indication that the threats are credible — or even real — at this time. 

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One school district in Little Falls, Minnesota, decided to cancel classes on Friday. TikTok claims to have found no videos that pose a specific hazard. Regardless, TikTok says it is working with law enforcement to investigate the warnings with “utmost seriousness”. After being warned by the state’s Department of Public Safety about “a TikTok trend that emerged targeting Friday, December 17, as a day of threats of shootings and bombings in schools,” one school district in Little Falls, Minnesota, decided to cancel classes on Friday. 

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TikTok has a bad reputation for hosting risky viral “challenges” on its app, which have resulted in significant damage or death in the worst-case scenarios — such as the blackout challenge, which caused Italian regulators to take action against the social network this year to remove underage users. The app had recently made news for challenges encouraging pupils to assault teachers and destroy school property. 

As the danger of more regulation looms, TikTok in November this year had released the findings of its investigation into viral challenges and hoaxes, as well as the steps it is taking to combat them.

TikTok had tried to downplay its involvement in viral challenges in the past.

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The company said it conducted a study of more than 10,000 kids, parents, and instructors from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Indonesia, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam a few months ago. It also hired Praesidio Safeguarding, an independent safeguarding organisation, to create a report outlining the findings and recommendations. A panel of 12 top teen safety experts was also asked to look through the report and offer their thoughts. Finally, TikTok teamed up with Dr. Richard Graham, a clinical child psychiatrist who specialises in healthy adolescent development, and Dr. Gretchen Brion-Meisels, a behavioural scientist who specialises in adolescent risk prevention, to provide additional advice.

Because social media platforms are so heavily utilised by young people, the data the survey revealed is worth investigating. It speaks to how social media can be a breeding ground for dangerous information, such as these viral challenges. Because of where they are in their psychological development, young individuals have a considerably higher appetite for risk.

Puberty, as Dr. Graham explained, is a unique phase in a child’s life that helps him or her prepare for adulthood. He described it as a period of “massive brain development.”

“There is a lot of focus now on understanding why teens do the things they do — because those judgment centers are being revised again in preparation for more complex decision-making and thinking in the future,” he explained.

TikTok also stated that it will be on the lookout for spikes in illegal content, including potentially harmful conduct, linked to hashtags.

For example, if a hashtag like #FoodChallenge, which is often used to share food recipes and cooking inspiration, began to show spikes in which more content was infringing TikTok’s regulations, the moderation team would be notified to investigate the reason of the spike and take appropriate action.

TikTok had stated that it will better monitor content, which users assumed it was already doing.