Headline, January 03 2025/ ''' VIOLENCE * -STUDENTS- VISCOSITY '''

''' VIOLENCE * -STUDENTS-

 VISCOSITY '''

IN MAY 2024 - SEVERAL GIRLS PLANNING AN ATTACK on a peer at a middle school in Novato, Calif., made an Instagram video beforehand discussing who would serve as a lookout or guard :

Their backpacks during the beating, said Lt. Alan Bates, with the Novato Police Department. Video clips of the assault which were aired by local Tv newscasts, showed several girls pummeling another as she lay on the ground, while a crowd of students hooted and filmed.

The Novato police later charged eight girls, aged 12 to 14, with conspiracy to commit assault.  Four also faced felony assault charges.

'' The aggression begins in technology, continues through the technology in the planning for the fights and comes to a head in physical confrontation,'' Lieutenant Bates said.

Masses of students filming also endanger peers, said Chris Hegarty, the school board chair at the Wake County Public School System in Cary, N.C. 

In November 2023, he said, students recording a fight in a high school gym blocked administrators from intervening. Two boys were stabbed. One, aged 15, later died.

'' So many students were crowded around recording on their phones, posting to social media, trying to get the best pictures, putting themselves and others in harm's way, '' Mr. Heagarty said. A video of the brawl, posted on X in February, got more than 660,000 views. 

In April, Wake County schools filed a lawsuit accusing Instagram, TikTok and other platforms of negligence and interfering with school operations.

TikTok said it forbids the promotion of violence  and proactively removed content showing violent activities. Snap said it prohibited graphic violence, and proactively removed accounts posting violent content.

Meta, which owns Instagram, said the platform does not allow bullying and removed content depicting physical bullying. Last month, Instagram took down 16 school fight accounts flagged by The Times for violating company policies.

Some families blame schools for failing to protect students, and have sued their districts for negligence.

In January, Adriana Kuch's parents sued the Central Regional School District in Bayville, N.J. saying the ninth grader was beaten in her high school hallway by two girls.

Students posted a video of the February 2023 assault on TikTok, subjecting Ms. Koch to intense cyberbullying. Within two days of the attack, she died by suicide '' as a resul of the emotional distress, humiliation and embarrassment she experienced,'' according to the lawsuit filed by Superior Court in Ocean County, N.J.

In April 2024, the school district filed a court document denying the allegations. The district court did not return a request for comment.

Young people's fast-changing tech habits have made it harder to prevent and contain violence student aggression, school officials said. Many students now use more private channels - like Snapchat, iMessage and AirDrop, Apple's wireless file-sharing system - to set up and share fights.

'' Now students might be arguing with each other, or bullying each other, for days and weeks online, which is hidden from the staff who would typically work to de-escalate the conflicts,'' Christopher Bowen, the principal of Revere High, said in an email.

And while the use of text messages, social media and videos to spread violence may alarm adults, students said that it is becoming a regular part of the school.

'' Kids are very used to it,'' said Lunna Guerrero, 16, a 10th-grader at Revere High, who was on the track team last year. '' Kids don't see it as something so surprising as the adults do.''

With most respectful dedication to the Memory of President Jimmy Carter, First Lady Rosalyn Carter, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India.

This Subject Publishing continues. The World Students Society thanks Natasha Singer.

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