Educators throughout the U.S. have been placed on excessive alert after claims surfaced {that a} meme was circulating on TikTok encouraging younger individuals to name in violent threats in opposition to their very own colleges on December 17. Some college districts have even canceled lessons in response to the meme. Strangely, Gizmodo couldn’t discover a single instance of a violent menace in opposition to a college on the social media platform.

The story caught fireplace Thursday, with native information retailers throughout the U.S. reporting that college districts and native police stations have been made conscious of a harmful meme on TikTok.

A small pattern of the headlines:

The solely downside? We can’t discover any major supply for this declare on TikTok. Yes, there are many statements from college districts and police departments. But we’ve got but to discover a single occasion—no screenshot, no TikTok, no nothing—of this declare circulating on the social media platform.

News retailers typically pointed to the claims of police, like this report from Minnesota, although the “threats” had been apparently imprecise sufficient that it couldn’t specify something nor might it even work out the identification of the poster:

The Morrison County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday mentioned it had additionally obtained a report of a social media put up that will have recognized the Little Falls, Royalton and Pierz college districts. Authorities haven’t been capable of finding the put up or confirm who may need posted it.

Late Thursday, the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office mentioned there have been no “known or identified threats as credible” obtained within the county, however may have additional patrols in class zones, are in communication with districts and can examine any threats ought to they come up.

And TikTok additionally claims it hasn’t discovered something.

“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,” the corporate mentioned in a tweet on Thursday.

The closest factor we’ve discovered is that this native TV information reporter in Missouri posting a TikTok video, claiming, “Videos like these warning of school violence are going viral on TikTok.”

But the child within the video isn’t making a menace and is probably going reacting to the native media hype, for all we are able to inform. The textual content within the video says “praying for the people who go to school on December 17.” That’s not a menace. That’s only a child praying for individuals.

That doesn’t essentially imply the meme didn’t exist. TikTok is tough to go looking, so far as social media platforms go, and it’s completely potential that TikTok has robotically deleted any offending content material and the corporate’s communications staff is simply confused about whether or not its platform discovered something. But it appears simply as believable that indignant and annoyed youngsters make extraordinarily imprecise threats about their college each day and it’s a lot much less a meme than it is part of life in U.S. society.

Mike Masnick, the founding father of TechDirt, wrote a weblog put up final month about suspicious claims of individuals inspiring violence on TikTok. But his conclusion was that the hype given to the tales by mainstream information retailers far outweighed the eye any violent memes had been getting on the platform. This might very nicely be the same scenario, assuming this new meme ever existed.

A school districts in Missouri has have canceled lessons right this moment over issues that this TikTok meme may very well be actual and college students may be planning violence, whereas colleges in Tacoma, Washington are going into lockdown. But how actual is the menace? Likely no extra credible than another day at an American college. Which, sadly, means individuals should be vigilant. School shootings are all too widespread. But December 17 will probably be similar to another day in that regard.