Students are bused from Columbia high school, after it had been secured, on 9 February 2004, to meet their parents at another school after Jon Romano shot a teacher, in East Greenbush, New York. In the video, Romano said: “People can be racist against a white person.”įollowing the incident, Romano had to have both arms and a leg reattached, according to a prosecutor. They went on to cite a video where Romano described an attack he survived in 2022 in which the perpetrator, who was Black, attacked him with a sword at a homeless shelter while “calling me the white devil”. “But to me, after watching many of your videos, it seems like you are mainly interested in protecting the mental health of people like you – white young boys,” they said. Many have since condemned Romano’s use of TikTok, with user – whom Romano followed – saying: “It’s incredibly disingenuous of you to build a platform off of the trauma that you’ve caused others and you do so under the guise of spreading awareness about mental health.” He went on to say that he thinks “there’s power in vulnerability, power in opening yourself up, and learning to do that can change lives”. “So now I do my best to talk to people, to answer questions and hopefully make change so that other communities, other people don’t go through what my victims did … I believe that mental health, although not to blame for my actions because there’s so many people who suffer and never hurt anybody else, but mental health is a big thing that doesn’t get talked about in schools,” he added. In one video that has amassed more than 5,800 likes, Romano said that although the teacher was not seriously injured, “I know that mentally, him and countless others were traumatized and still suffer to this day almost 20 years later because of me.” Now, more than 20 years later, Romano has 255,000 followers and more than 7m likes on his TikTok account In his bio, Romano writes: “After being a part of the problem, it’s time to be a part of the solution.” “We welcome this action and hope this matter can be resolved swiftly.”Ī spokesperson for TikTok said: “Our community guidelines make clear that we do not tolerate content that contains bullying or harassment, statements targeting an individual, or hateful speech or behaviour, and we remove content that violates these guidelines.Romano also told police then that he had “fantasies for about the last year of going in Columbia and shooting up the place”, per the Times. It has also offered to meet with us to discuss its response in more detail. It says it has acted against a large number of accounts already. “TikTok has replied to us to say it is investigating the issue and that it is using a combination of technologies and moderation teams to identify and remove content or accounts that violate its community guidelines. Schools tell us that they have asked TikTok to remove them but TikTok has often failed to act despite these posts clearly breaching the platform’s community guidelines,” Barton said. “These posts are often defamatory and offensive, and some are homophobic. Geoff Barton, general secretary of ASCL, said his union had received more than 50 complaints about TikTok accounts, but said it was likely to be a much larger problem that could lead to pupils being excluded from school. Headteachers told Schools Week that complaints to TikTok about abusive posts or accounts rarely received a response, with no action taken in most cases. This is happening in other Birmingham schools too and the police are aware and involved in some cases already.” “We are aware of at least two accounts that are currently targeting Plantsbrook teachers. Plantsbrook school in Sutton Coldfield told parents it was “aware of a current ‘challenge’ circulating on TikTok encouraging school students to make dummy accounts and post unpleasant content that vilifies teachers at their school. “We are clear that social media companies need to take action against harmful content on their platforms and we are introducing laws which will usher in a new era of accountability for these social media companies,” a spokesperson for the government said.Ī number of schools have already written directly to parents, warning that the police would be involved in cases where pupils are found to have set up accounts identifying or purporting to belong to a teacher. “We are engaging with TikTok on the steps being taken by them to address this issue involving teachers. A spokesperson for the DfE said it was never acceptable for teachers or other staff to be harassed or intimidated using social media.
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