California Teachers Association (CTA) sent a warning to teachers on Oct.5 about the TikTok “slap a teacher” challenge, which encourages students to slap teachers.
Article by Alice Sun from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.
After an elementary school student struck a teacher in the back of her head in Lancaster County School District in South Carolina, CTA issued a warning titled “When Social Media Trends Become Assault” on Tuesday aimed at the latest TikTok challenge which prompts students to physically attack teachers or staff members and run away before being caught.
“While this month’s challenge, not sponsored or authorized by TikTok, doesn’t yet to appear to have caught on widely, there has already been at least one incident reported in South Carolina and it is important to be aware that students here in California may be coerced by social media or their peers to participate,” CTA wrote in the warning.
“We encourage CTA local affiliates to work with districts to educate both students and parents about responsible social media use and being respectful of others, and to make it clear that behavior influenced by this ‘challenge’ is unsafe and will not be tolerated.”
CTA advised teachers to encourage parents to talk with students about the consequences of participating in any activity that this challenge could bring. It also indicates that slapping teachers is unacceptable and will be considered assault and battery.
The “slap a teacher” challenge appears to be part of the “devious licks” challenge from last month which prompted students to vandalize school property.
The “devious licks” challenge has negatively impacted many schools across the country, allegedly resulting in thousands of dollars of damage in Coalinga-Huron Unified School District in Fresno, California. The school district claimed that they had to replace 41 soap dispensers in three days.
According to a picture circulated on Twitter, an agenda for TikTok challenges was made at a prior time with a list of themes that were planned each month from September 2021 until July 2022. September’s theme was to damage school restrooms; October’s is to slap a staff member; November’s theme is to kiss someone else’s girlfriend; December’s is to write graffiti.
Last month’s damage prompted school districts and teacher associations to pay attention to the new challenge arising this month. Nebraska State Education Association criticized both challenges as criminal behaviors and asked TikTok to shut down challenges calling for violence and other illegal activities.
Jenni Benson, president of Nebraska State Education Association, emphasized that “There will be zero tolerance for Tiktok’s ‘slap a teacher challenge.’”
On Oct. 4, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong wrote a letter to Shou Zi Chew, the Chief Executive Officer of TikTok, urging him to meet with parents and educators to discuss an effective and permanent solution to prevent such challenges.
“Whatever TikTok has been doing to enforce its terms of service has not been working and merits serious review and reform. I ask that you share a detailed description of all policies and procedures in place to prevent against abuse and misuse of your platform,” Tong wrote in the letter.
A TikTok spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that this latest “slap a teacher” challenge has not appeared on the platform, and any content promoting illegal activities is not allowed on the platform and will be removed.
“This alleged ‘challenge’ would violate our policies and we would aggressively remove such content, but the reality is that we have not found related content on our platform, and most people appear to be learning about the offline dare from sources other than Tik Tok,” the spokesperson wrote.
Image by Ashutosh from Pixahive, CC0 – Free to Use.
One Sick Day Proves We Need More Voices in Truthful Media
On October 19, I was sick. It crossed my mind that I had finally gotten the ‘rona, but my wife’s cream of chicken soup and a few extra hours of sleep into mid-afternoon had be back up and running after a sleepless night before.
When I finally stumbled over to my computer in the evening, I was met with a deluge of concern from readers. They asked what had happened as only one article had been posted that day. Generally, we post between 10-20 daily between all of the sites, not included curated and aggregated content. Seeing that we’d only posted my super-early morning article before taking the rest of the day off had readers assuming the worst.
We have a wonderful and talented group of writers who volunteer their time for the sites and their readers. Sharing their amazing perspectives has always been a blessing to us because we cannot afford to hire anyone at this time. But having great writers is meaningless if we don’t have great editors, or at least one additional. My wife helps me read and edit stories from time to time, but I’m a one-man show when it comes to getting the stories posted.
Whenever I highlight our desperate need for donations, I note that we do not receive money from Google ads even though most in conservative media are beholden. I often ambiguously note that the money donated will help us grow. Today, I’m highlighting a specific need. We must get an editor to help take some of the load and to expand on our mission of spreading the truth to the world. One sick day proved that.
The great news is that there is no shortage of people who CAN help. I am emailed variations of resumes every week by people who are much smarter than I am. As much as I’d love to hire some of them, we simply cannot. That takes money and as blessed as we’ve been to receive donations and collect ad money (though not from Google or Facebook), we have still fallen short.
Those who have the means, PLEASE consider donating. We have the standard Giving Fuel option and people can donate through PayPal. We are also diving into what we believe is extremely disruptive technology at LetsGo.finance, the world’s first major donation portal for crypto. I’ll be talking a lot more about them in the near future. Those who prefer Bitcoin can send to my address here: 3A1ELVhGgrwrypwTJhPwnaTVGmuqyQrMB8
We can get the voices out there and we’re willing to shine a spotlight on new talent. We just need the resources to make it happen. If you can help, we would be extremely grateful.
Thank you and God bless!
JD Rucker
All ORIGINAL content on this site is © 2021 NOQ Report. All REPUBLISHED content has received direct or implied permission for reproduction.
With that said, our content may be reproduced and distributed as long as it has a link to the original source and the author is credited prominently. We don’t mind you using our content as long as you help out by giving us credit with a prominent link. If you feel like giving us a tip for the content, we will not object!
JD Rucker – EIC
@jdrucker
