School fights promoted on social media platforms

Posts gamifying school violence have appeared on young people’s social media accounts across London this week. Accounts promoting ‘school wars’ have been created on Snapchat and TikTok, encouraging secondary school pupils to fight each other, sometimes with the aid of weapons. This is an issue the Metropolitan Police Service are investigating thoroughly. Speaking about the issue, Commander Neerav Patel says his department has been in contact with platforms to take the accounts down. He also issued a warning to students who may want to take part: “an arrest, charge and conviction for violence and carrying weapons could mean imprisonment, with a significant long-term impact on future opportunities.” Schools have notified parents of the posts, some of which show a points-based system for particular violent acts. Despite this, it seems that some young people are not convinced the danger is real. “People are just trying to fearmonger parents” one Year 10 student is quoted as saying. “Any teenager with common sense would not meet somewhere where the police have been told about and bring a weapon.” Read more here.