The Likely Truth About the “National Shoot Up Your School Day” TikTok Trend – By Aaron Mak (Slate) / December 18, 2021
Leading into Friday, school districts around the country notified parents of a reported “National Shoot Up Your School Day” TikTok trend, which had supposedly encouraged students to commit violence on Dec. 17. Federal and state law enforcement agencies asserted that the supposed threats are not credible, and TikTok said it could not find any evidence of such a trend, though school districts had been heightening their security measures and increasing police presence on campuses out of an abundance of caution. Some schools even opted to shut down for the day, and many parents reportedly kept their kids home.
Publicly available details about the trend are scarce. Dozens of local news outlets have reported on the social media phenomenon, though they have largely been unable to identify the original TikTok videos promoting the national day of violence or specific regional threats that resulted from the supposed trend. One possible exception is in Tooele County, Utah, where a screenshot of a threat circulated on Facebook, which read in part, “Im [sic] am so tired of everything on December 17 I will shoot up the school this is your only warning please don’t go!” The post specifically names a school with the initials “GHS,” which some parents in the area reportedly thought was a reference to the county’s Granger High School, though officials claim that it is more likely a school in California or Colorado. Utah officials also asserted that the trend was originally an attempt by students to get out of class that spiraled out of control. Otherwise, though, there seems to be very little evidence of the trend available online; videos still on TikTok by Friday about “National Shoot Up Your School Day” were virtually all either warnings to stay safe or criticisms of the trend. TikTok also announced that it “exhaustively searched for content that promotes violence at schools today, but have still found nothing.” The platform is, however, removing “alarmist warnings” about the trend that violate policies around misinformation.
Just found out that tomorrow is “national shoot up your school day”… I hate it here pic.twitter.com/HYLYctrNr9
— josh ☻ (@3jarsh5me) December 17, 2021
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