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Schools Keep Receiving Bomb Threats After Libs Of TikTok Posts About Them
Schools Keep Receiving Bomb Threats After Libs Of TikTok Posts About Them
A pattern of bomb threats trails Libs of TikTok posts, spotlighting the dangerous cusp of online rhetoric and real-world terror.
Chaya Raichik, through her Libs of TikTok account, posts provocative content targeting LGBTQ+ inclusivity in schools. Several times a bomb threat ensues against the schools, causing real-world panic.
The sequence of recent bomb threats following posts on social media from the Libs of TikTok account is generating alarm among education communities. The unfolding events at an elementary school in a Chicago suburb and at California State University, Fresno, underscore the growing concerns over the transition from online rhetoric to real-world threats and terror.
In Chicago, an elementary school received three bomb threats shortly after Raichik’s Libs of TikTok account showcased a Pride flag in a classroom, an incident reported byThe American Independent.
Related: Oklahoma School District Inundated With Bomb Threats After Libs of TikTok Tweet
This situation duplicated itself at California State University Fresno, where a post critiquing a professor’s pronoun policy was swiftly trailed by a bomb threat, prompting campus-wide evacuations and igniting fear among the university community, as detailed byUSA Today.
SCOOP: Meet professor Ida Jones in @Fresno_State. She forces students to enter their personal pronouns or they will lose points and not get full credit. One of the pronoun options is \u201cze/hir.\u201d \n\nA submission from 2022 on Rate My Professors claims this professor \u201cremoved a large\u2026— Libs of TikTok (@Libs of TikTok) 1695835034
Libs of TikTok’s core agenda of critiquing and ridiculing LGBTQ+ inclusive practices in educational settings has attracted widespread condemnation.
About 11 schools or school districts targeted by Libs of TikTok last month received bomb threats just days afterward, VICE reports. The outlet reached out to Raichik about the threats.
"[Raichik] would not say if she felt any responsibility for the threats, and instead insinuated the threats had nothing to do with her or her followers. She then posted the email chain to her followers on her personal account on X, which was then amplified by the Libs of TikTok account," VICE wrote.
Alejandra Caraballo, a transgender Harvard Law instructor, pointedly highlighted the peril in a post on X, formerly Twitter, writing, “Not content with inciting bomb threats at several schools, Libs of TikTok has recently started to name individual school staff to send her digital lynch mob after for the crime of having a pride flag pin. This is terrorism, full stop.”
Not content with inciting bomb threats at several schools, Libs of Tiktok has recently started to name individual school staff to send her digital lynch mob after for the crime of having a pride flag pin. This is terrorism, full stop.— Alejandra Caraballo (@Alejandra Caraballo) 1694044395
The phrase “stochastic terrorism” has been used by experts like Juliette Kayyem from the Harvard Kennedy School and Ari Drennen, LGBTQ+ program director for Media Matters, to describe the perilous intersection of online hate and real-world violence.
Stochastic terrorism is based on a psychological phenomenon in which someone is inspired to act violently in the name of something they perceive as wrong from messages they receive that are designed to inspire such action.
Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, emphasized to USA Today the significance of respectful dialogue.
“Using the correct pronouns for transgender students, and for any students, is a matter of treating others with dignity and respect, and it shouldn’t incite hate,” she said.
Although establishing a direct causative link between Raichik’s posts and the ensuing bomb threats is intricate, the chronological unfolding of events has raised alarm. The repeated pattern of a Libs of TikTok post preceding a threat or violent act against the spotlighted institution or individual is disconcerting.
The urgency to confront and deter such incidents, safeguarding educational communities’ physical and psychological well-being, is compelling.
Drennen encapsulated the gravity of the situation.
“It’s just truly a dangerous new era. We can’t really afford to pretend that there’s no separation between what goes on social media and what happens in the real world,” she told USA Today.
