Editorials and other Opinion content offer perspectives on issues important to our community and are independent from the work of our newsroom reporters.
If The State newspaper ran a series of letters to the editor that promoted people reporting fake active shooters at schools and people acted on that, we would have our pants sued off.
And we should be taken to the cleaners if we did such a thing.
So why should TikTok be treated any differently?
The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office should investigate “challenges” on TikTok to call in fake active shooters and sue the social media company for all its worth if the office finds that the company gave a platform to such a call to action.
The hoax, if substantiated that it came from social media, serves as more evidence that these companies need far more regulation.
Wednesday, roughly 18 schools across South Carolina were subjected to false reports of active shooters being on campuses or similar hoaxes, according to reports.
In Richland County, Blythewood High School went through a full-on active shooter response before police discovered the call was fake, as reported by The State’s Noah Feit.
Sheriff Leon Lott said the fake call stemmed from a TikTok challenge.
The State has not independently verified that incidents on Wednesday started as a social media challenge, but similar situations across the country have had their origins on social media.
In December, the Washington Post wrote about school threats and social media...
Kolkata: Kolkata Police has been grappling with a fresh challenge since the past week — controlling fake news. While it initially started with fake circulars, beginning with "restrictions" on cert...