Over the fall break many Lincoln students began seeing disturbing content on social media. An account by the handle “anonymouskiller64” began to post threats about shooting Lincoln students. The account also reached out to many female Lincoln students asking if they went to Lincoln because the unknown user wanted to know who to “kill.”

“Police identified the individual within hours of the post circulating,”said Matthew Hewitson, Lincoln’s principal, in an email to all staff, “Search warrants were obtained for social media account information which led to the home of the suspect. A residence was searched and the suspect was arrested and taken into custody at 1:30am the night of the social media post.  Police determined that it was a hoax and that there was no credible threat to the safety of Lincoln.  No other info about the individual is available.”

On the alleged Monday, many students decided not to attend classes. Many classes were barley filled with students. On October 7th there was extra staff and police on campus walking around. Student support counselors were also provided. This was traumatic for many reasons. According to Radiah Flores, Lincoln’s attendance office clerk, on Monday the 7th of October, 536 absent out of 1773, leaving only 1237 students at school. On a October 15th, which is just another Monday, there were 494 students absent.

Social media is now a tool used to harass peers even when they are not at school, it leaves a permanent mark.

When students make their first Instagram account, very few read the terms and conditions. Instagram states that “you hereby grant to us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings).” This means that Instagram may not own your photo because it is yours but, by posting it Instagram and use your content as they please.

Social media creates records of your actions which can make or break your future. Harvard once had to rescind admissions to at least 10 students of the prospective class of 2021 because they were involved in an obscene group chat. In the group chat memes or funny jokes were shared about sexual assault, child abuse, and the Holocaust were few of the topics discussed.

However there is also bright sides to a social media trail. Noen Eubanks was a high school senior just trying to get through the year and avoiding  the stress of planning for the future. Until one day when he woke up with 100 views on a social media app called “Tik tok.” Tik tok (previosly known as muscially),  is an app for making videos that you can either lip sinc to or create your own audio. Today Eubanks is the new face of Kyra TV — a generation z entertainment network — living in hollywood, starting a clothing line, receiving a salary, and beginning to form professional partnerships.

Noen Eubanks making a new video for Tik Tok

Eva Ramirez, sophomore ASB president, explained how “social media is something to be used with care” because it is something that “leaves a mark.”