Getty Images/Compassionate Eye Foundation/Robert Daly/OJO Images
Unraveling viral disinformation and explaining where it came from, the harm it's causing, and what we should do about it.
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The claims about the “Slap a Teacher” challenge appear to have originated from a single online document that lists various school TikTok challenges for each month, which began with the “Devious Licks” challenge in September. However, there’s no evidence to show that this list is real or represents a TikTok trend.
Despite the complete lack of evidence that students are attacking teachers and posting videos of it online, numerous media outlets have run credulous stories about the “trend” citing the warnings from officials as evidence. On the video-sharing app itself, a number of teachers have posted videos warning their students not to try anything. Other users are simply using the claims to make fun of the situation:But there are no videos showing students actually striking their teachers—and a teacher being attacked in a classroom isn’t evidence that a TikTok trend is real. “That is simply confirmation bias,” Richards said.Part of the problem appears to be a lack of understanding of how TikTok works and how trends become viral on the platform. A single user cannot dictate what becomes a trend just by writing down a list of these trends.“TikTok has real threats (I would know, I study them professionally). But this particular threat appears to not be from teens,” Richards tweeted. “Seems like a whole lot of adults don’t know what a TikTok challenge is or how they work. And they didn’t ask anyone to explain it to them either.”The situation echoes a hoax that went viral in April based on a rumor that April 24 had been designated “National Rape Day”, even though there was no evidence to support the claims that men were spreading videos urging others to celebrate the day.TikTok has a lot of issues to deal with in relation to hate speech and disinformation—as Richards highlighted in research she published Tuesday that shows the app’s algorithm leads users from transphobic videos to far-right rabbit holes—and making claims about hoax challenges on the platform simply detract from the real issues.