US: FBI investigates threat of armed attacks on schools posted on TikTok

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said it was investigating a threat of armed attacks on the country’s schools, which was posted on the social network TikTok and because it went viral led many educational institutions to warn parents.

Different authorities, however, downgraded the credibility of this threat, which was released on TikTok in the form of videos urging a “school shooting challenge” and that firearms and explosives mechanisms will be implemented today in schools in the US.

The rumor surfaced two weeks after the deadly attack on a high school student in Oxford, Michigan, in which a 15-year-old boy killed four students and wounded several others with a semi-automatic pistol given to him by his parents.

“There is information circulating that today is a day of attacks on schools,” school officials in Washington, D.C. “.

The Pennsylvania School District, Pennsylvania, told parents there would be an increased police presence around its buildings, even if “it does not believe the threat is credible.”

In Gilroy, California, the school district director announced on the Internet that classes at Gilroy High School would be canceled today due to threats of violence against the school “on various social media accounts.”

TikTok has confirmed that it is conducting research, keeping its distance from the videos that appeared on its platform.

“We are taking the threats, even if they are rumors, very seriously and that is why we are working with the authorities to address the warnings of possible violence in schools,” TikTok wrote in a press release.

And “even if we did not find evidence that such threats were born or spread on TikTok,” it added.

The FBI said it was taking “all possible threats seriously.”

“We are working regularly with our police partners to determine the credibility of any threat,” the statement said.

SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ