Blaming TikTok for Wyoming School Threats? Blame The Parents!

The Casper Police Department and the Natrona County School District have notified parents about a nationwide social media trend that, allegedly, encourages students to threaten violence towards their schools.

School districts across Wyoming have placed extra security measures in play in response to threats of violence circulating nationally on the TikTok social media app.

There are those who are now blaming the platform TikTok for this outrageous behavior.

I BLAME THE PARENTS!

Blaming the social media platform is like blaming the gun for shooting. 

Any kid that has been raised properly WOULD NEVER get on social media and act in such a way.

I'm a TikTok user. I follow people of all ages all over Wyoming and the nation. There are those young people on the site that I find to be intelligent, funny, fun, and creative. I have never seen them say or do anything objectionable.

So when a few kids act stupidly on social media, (and that can mean so many things), is it the fault of the app? Are parents NOT monitoring what their kids are doing?

If a bunch of teenagers break into a hardware store and steal a bunch of hammers do we blame the hardware store? The hammers? Maybe we should blame bad parenting. 

For that matter when a kid grabs a gun and shoots up a school it is ridiculous to blame the gun. Let's go home and find out what was going on there.

Or maybe the parents did all they could but there was just something wrong with the kid that they could not figure out and control. At that point, the parents should have sought help, and help is available. 

Whatever we do we need to stop blaming the tool that was used and focus on the person committing the offense.