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WORCESTER Central Massachusettsschool officials are warning parents about a viral, nationwide trendwhere students post generalized threats of school violence that is supposed to take place Friday, Dec. 17.

Thetrend began onTikTok, a video social networking app popular with teenagers, and has now spread to other social media apps such as Snapchat.

"My phone is blowing up.I'm getting numerous calls from staff and principals about threats being made in social media through TikTok in particular," Worcester Schools Safety Director Robert F. Pezzella said. "They're being encouraged. Whoever's out there encouraging this, to call in bomb threats, in school shootings, etc. throughout the United States schools, not just in Worcester. ... So we are preparing, we will be vigilant."

Pezzella said that the trend is separate from the threat that was made at Worcester Technical High School on Wednesday.

"There is a lot of unrest in our schools as a result of what they are reading and what they are now finding out from these threats that are occurring for TikTok," Pezzella said. "I can assure you on behalf of the superintendentthat we will continue to keep our schools safe."

Because of the generalized nature of the threat, some districts, such Auburn, acted preemptively to ensure that the threat was not credible, sending letters to assure parents the matter was not being taken lightly.

"That's really what preempted it was to just reassure people that, 'Look,this has happened. This is out there. We're prepared. We've got all of our plans in place. Your kids are safe with us,' " Auburn Superintendent Casey Handfield said.

More: Offensive Instagram site targeting Black students at Fitchburg HS reported as hate crime

He said, as a precaution, there will beincreased police presence inAuburn schools.

Spencer-East Brookfield Regional School Superintendent Paul S. Haughey also published a letter explaining that the school district was aware of the threat and worked with law enforcement to investigate the matter.

"For us, we just wanted to be proactive and make sure people knew that we had anSRO and we made our local law enforcement available and aware that this issue was being brought forward by parents and families in our community," Haughey said.

The letter also let parents and guardians know that the threats were found to have no credibility.

"We wanted to assure the community with my authoring of a letter today that there's no credible threat in our district," he said.

More: US schools increase security in response to TikTok posts warning of shooting, bomb threats

Unlike the generalized threats being shared on TikTok, Dudley Middle School experienced a very specific threat.

A screenshot of a Snapchat message in which the user whose name matchedthat of a student in a neighboring town threatened to shoot up the school reached school administrators, who then reached out to law enforcement. Information about the user's name used in the message has been corrected here.

Although the threat was more targeted, it is still likely part of the social media trend, Charlton Police Chief Daniel Dowd said.

"Wedon't believe it's a credible threat at this time but obviously, out of an abundance of caution, we continue to work it and try to find out more informationbut we don't believe that is as what was reported," Dowd said.

He said there is a possibility that someone used social media to learn the student's name and location, and posed as the student.

"They may not even knowthis person or they may have had," Dowd said. "What I'm saying is that the student mentioned we don't believe has anything to do with this thing other than his name was used."

Charlton police are still investigating the matter as an extra precaution.

Pezzella said that the No. 1 thing that people can do is reportany type of threats, "even if they think it might be ... just an off-color remark."

He said that people can call his direct line or they can call the school principal or the superintendent.

"We take every threat seriously. We have to investigate every threat," Pezzella said. "So if families or the public is hearing anything, then they can report it."

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Central Mass. rattled by viral trend of school violence threats on social media - Worcester Telegram

Web3 is here to give power to the people, and it will completely change how social media works. With the use of blockchain, it will be impossible to limit social platforms in any way, and anyone can join in regardless of geographic limitations.

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These social networks have full authority over the data that is shared and stored on the platform, as opposed to Web2 legacy ones such as Facebook, which got bogged down in the Cambridge Analytica scandal after leaking the data of millions of users.

As Web3 keeps developing, the growth of its social networks will hinge on catering to brands and communities as DeFi investors are mostly focused on yield generation.

We spoke with Alex Siman, CEO of SubSocial, a social networking platform that provides the architecture and social primitives upon which social networks can be built. The company recently won a slot on Kusama Parachain and has its own views on Web3 drivers and the future of DeFi.

Social networking platforms provide the architecture and social primitives for social networks to be built on top of. Those social networks will differentiate from Web2 social networks by being open, decentralized, and permissionless, with built-in Social Finance features like tips and subscriptions, without there being a middleman taking a cut.

On a larger scale, all social networks will share content and a user base, meaning users can migrate between social networks seamlessly, without losing their content backlog, or their followers. This will likely result in a much better specialization of particular social networks, as well as more competition between them. This is what we strive for.

Most of the people very involved in DeFi are just looking for where they can park their capital to earn the highest yield, so social networks do not appeal to them as much.

In contrast, social networks usually appeal highly to those with communities and brands, who may not be as interested in yield farming as they are in community engagement, content creation, and content monetization.

This means that in order to grow the user base of Web3 social networks, a very different market segment will have to be targeted.

We definitely expected to win a slot in this round, due to opening our crowdloan a few days earlier than anyone else, but we certainly didnt expect to hit our cap of 100K KSM so quickly, and become the fourth project to hit a crowdloan cap.

Being able to operate as a parachain is crucial to becoming a blossoming ecosystem of Social Finance. Integrations with other parachains building DeFi, identity solutions, and privacy features will allow us a much larger list of potential features.

We are humbled by the enthusiastic support of our community. Its really awesome to see all of our hard work pay off, though in another sense, the work is just beginning. Now we have to keep delivering.

The Dotsama ecosystem is at the forefront of the Web3 movement. Looking back at Web1 and Web2, social interaction has always been an integral part of the internet the internet is a communication tool first and foremost.

Social networks have dominated Web2,and we aim to provide the proper tools for Web3 social networks to flourish, allowing civilization to continue communicating with these beneficial tools, without all of the downsides present in Web2.

We are considering multiple approaches to this issue. The main consideration is that if the fees are too low, or its too easy to get free transactions, then bad actors can spam the network. The most likely approach will be that you can stake SUB tokens to earn some number of free transactions per day.

At the moment, we have three live projects: the SubSocial blockchain, our web app, and Sub.ID - our one-stop shop for viewing all of your Substrate assets in one place.

We have a few more projects in development, including a mobile SubSocial app, and another app centered around NFTs (built on top of SubSocial). I cant say much about the rest yet, but they will also add more value to the Dotsama ecosystem.

Updated on Dec 16, 2021, 10:47 am

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CEO Spotlight: Alex Siman From SubSocial On The Future Of Web3 And Social Networks - ValueWalk

While social networking platforms remain integral across the global democracies for media convergence, public opinion, and freedom of expression without the states inference, censorship, and reprisals, over the recent yearsit has contributed to polarization, populism, biased facts, divisive political rhetorics, and manipulation, threatening the very fabric of democracy. Leading social media platforms, particularly Facebook operated by the parent company Meta owned by the tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg, and microblogging site Twitter now operated under the newly Indian origin CEO Parag Agrawal not only have turned the biggest source of hate propelling and disinformation but have also failed to regulate the biased against facts flow of information.

A2020 media manipulation survey from the University of Oxford institute on Friday, Dec. 17found evidence in each of the 81 countries surveyed. Organizedsocial media manipulation campaigns online was up 15% in one year across at least70 countries in 2019, a report compiled bythe Oxford Internet Institute (OII) suggests, adding that governments, public relations firms, and political parties produce a large scale of misinformation, particularly with respect to thepolitical communication.OII team warns that the level of politicalmanipulation across Facebook and Twitter has risen tenfoldwith governments and political parties spending millions on private sector cyber troops' that manipulate the citizens' opinion spending $10 million on an average towardssocial media political advertisements.

Our report shows misinformation has become more professionalised and is now produced on an industrial scale. Now, more than ever, the public needs to be able to rely on trustworthy information about government policy and activity,"Philip Howard, director of the institute and the reports co-author said in the report.

During the 2020 Presidential elections, social media platforms Twitter and Facebook instated an unprecedented ban on the former US leader Donald Trump for his unsubstantiated claims about the election fraud that led to the violent insurrection in the United States Capitol. In an apparent display of breach of the democratic procedure, the mob attempted to halt the certification of the democratically elected President of the United States, Joe Biden.

Under public pressure, Twitter and Facebook then indefinitely banned the former US Presidents official social media accounts citing the political context of emergency and national security, which the latter argued was a gory violation of his human rights and freedom of speech. Geneva Press clubalso discussed at length the impact of such a move on democracy as such measures taken by the social media giants is the impediment to freedom of expression.

We have made a lot of mistakes in running the company, and Facebook must work harder at ensuring the tools it creates are used in 'good and healthy'ways." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Over the past several years, Facebook and Twitter have also been accused of resorting tonew tactics of foreign influenceto manipulate voters via a network of fakeandautomated accounts. In 2010, personal data belonging to millions ofFacebookusers was acquired by the British consulting firmCambridge Analytica without the knowledge or consent of the users forpolitical advertising via an app "This Is Your Digital Life. The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal involved 87 million Facebook profiles harvested through the platform for analytical assistance for the 2016 US presidential campaigns ofTed CruzandDonald Trump.

We didnt take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and Im sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and Im responsible for what happens here."Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of social media platform Facebook after the data leak scandal.

Political parties such as the Republicans and Democrats have been criticized for inflating their popularity by creating hashtags and trends linked to their political parties, thus maliciously influencing the democratic voting systems. The worlds most polarizing political figures also employ social media platforms for pushing their agenda via artificial bots and fake accounts. According to the Special Counsel Robert MuellersReport, the Russian conspirators meddled in the 2020 US elections, hampering the democratic process by spreading discord, lies, and disinformation to at least 100 million voters on social media platforms.

Russian government and firmslinked to Kremlin used a "sweeping and systematic" effort to undermine Americans' confidence in their democracy, the Mueller report reveals citing the federal investigators. Former director of the FBI, and law enforcement officers from the Trump administration, who was named as a special counsel to investigate Russian collusion said during his testimony before a pair of House committeesthat Russian operatives hacked their way into local voter registration systems without actually tampering with vote tallies but by launching a mass political campaign to sway the American citizens opinions of politicians and the US political system using the trolls and hacking into accounts.

FBI Director Christopher Wray also confirmed the undermining of the American democracy with the Senate Judiciary Committee, stressing that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 to help elect Trump via an online political campaign. A Facebook representative also testified at the US Congress, stating that at least 470 Russian-controlled accounts collectively made 80,000 political posts between January 2015 and August 2017 to influence the voting of over 126 million people, as per Facebooks estimates.

Twitter similarly in 2018published an update that there were 3,814 accountsonline operated by the Russian government outfitInternet Research Agency(IRA) that attempted to influence political opinion by tweeting 175,000 times, reaching 1.4 million Americans. The threat to democracy from social media is largely due to the unregulated content, ineffective design and enforcement of fair policies, and lack of authenticity of the millions of existing accounts

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Is social media threatening democracies across the world through misinformation? - Republic World

Employee network groups (ENGs), also known as employee resource groups (ERGs) or workplace affinity groups, arent a new concept by any stretch. The first official ERG began in the 1960s a time of great racial tension to provide Black employees at Xerox with a safe space to talk about their experiences and advocate for positive change within the organization. However, ENGs, which are voluntary, employee-led groups that form around common interests, backgrounds or demographic factors such as gender, race or ethnicity, have definitely been in the spotlight much more lately.

The staggering disruption of the global pandemic, increased focus on promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in workplaces, and the growing need for businesses to create sustainable, people-centric cultures that attract and retain top talent are just some factors driving this trend. Since the beginning of 2020, 35% of companies have added or expanded their support for ENGs, according to a 2021 study by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org. Today, 90% of Fortune 500 companies have these groups.

Among them is global talent solutions firm Robert Half, which has sponsored the launch of several new ENGs since 2020, including the Global Womens Employee Network (GWEN). GWENs mission is to champion and amplify womens perspectives while creating networks, community and growth opportunities for women. And Robert Halfs wholly owned subsidiary, Protiviti, a global consulting firm, also supports several thriving ENGs in its organization, including the Initiative for Growth and Retention of Women at Work (iGROWW). Similar to GWEN in its purpose, iGROWW tackles womens professional issues through various forums and facilitates networking events and community service activities.

The COVID-19 pandemic was certainly a factor in accelerating the formation of GWEN and other new ENGs at Robert Half, says GWENs co-founder Carrie Toal, who is also the manager of Employee Connection at Robert Half and oversees the companys U.S. Corporate Services Culture Ambassador program. Many of us were feeling isolated because of the shift to remote work, and we recognized that employee-led groups presented an opportunity for us to stay connected and resilient during the COVID-19 crisis.

Andrea Spinelli, a managing director at Protiviti, says ENGs like iGROWW and GWEN can help companies to amplify their DEI efforts. Groups like these fulfill a key part of our strategy at Protiviti, for example, which is empowering our people for the future, she says. ENGs help create a work environment where everyone can thrive through inclusion. And while its important that these groups are recognized by executive management as a means to inspire the workforce, their real power lies in the fact that they are led by employees.

Turning the Seed of an Idea Into a Grass-Roots Initiative With Global Reach

Spinelli, who counts herself as an unofficial founding member of iGROWW, remembers how the idea for the ENG first took root. Not long after she joined Protivitis Atlanta office in 2006, Spinelli and a few women colleagues decided to enjoy lunch outside. We got to talking about a lot of things, and one idea that came out of that discussion was how great it would be if we had some type of professional networking organization for women at Protiviti.

Spinelli, who now works for Protiviti in Boston, is proud to see how the group has evolved over the years to become a vibrant ENG, with many local grass-roots groups across Protiviti locations arising around the globe. iGROWW even influenced the creation of another ENG, Gender Equality in Technology and IT or GET IT. The group focuses on bringing the values and goals of iGROWW to technologists across Protiviti and helping to increase gender diversity in the technology profession.

Starting an Important Conversation That Hasnt Stopped

At Robert Half, GWEN launched in March 2021 as a global network with chapters in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. As of December 2021, the group had more than 900 active members. How was GWEN able to start growing so rapidly right out of the gate? Not only did it have a group like iGROWW to look to for inspiration, but it also had a strong foundation built by Toal and her colleague Stephnee Leathers, the senior director of creative for Robert Half and Protiviti.

The two met at a Robert Half-sponsored International Womens Day event a few years ago, and, following a lively and thought-provoking discussion that included the other women seated at their table, decided they wanted to keep meeting as a group. So, they created a womens network on the social networking service, Yammer, to keep up their dialogue. In 2020, when Robert Half decided to formalize its ENG program, Toal and Leathers knew it was time for them to take GWEN to the next level.

As for GWENs impressive expansion since launching last spring, Toal says she believes the groups focus on volunteer involvement has been a key factor. The real powerhouses driving our ENG forward are our six committees, 20 subcommittees and 34 committee members, she says. And while GWEN means something different to every member, the group gives everyone a chance to lead, learn new skills and connect in ways they likely couldnt in the course of their everyday work. Its empowering and fulfilling to engage with each other around a common purpose and make a difference.

Toal also attributes the success of both GWEN and iGROWW to the simple fact that women make up more than half of the global workforce at Robert Half and Protiviti. We have strong demographic representation, says Toal. However, we dont have as many women, especially underrepresented women, in leadership positions in the organization as wed like to see. Thats a key reason we strive to bring male allies into our group, as well, so that they can better understand the gender divide, embrace the opportunity to be mentors and champion more women in leadership positions.

Joining an ENG Can Provide More Time to Focus on Professional Development

Another ongoing objective for GWEN, according to Toal, is bringing more women into the group who are already in leadership roles at the company to share their expertise and experiences with members. Angela Lurie, senior vice president of the full-time contract talent practice, at Robert Half, is one example. Shes been with the organization for more than 20 years and has served in various leadership roles.

Lurie says, ENGs like GWEN are powerful tools for advancing important conversations to ensure the organization, as a whole, is moving in the right direction. And I think for women in accounting and finance, in particular, these groups can provide invaluable support. Women in these professions often face intense, deadline-driven job requirements that prevent them from focusing on activities vital to their career growth, like networking. But because ENGs schedule their meetings during work hours, women in accounting and finance can find more time to prioritize their professional development.

And, as for those who want to start an ENG and position it for success, Toal offers the following advice based on her experience so far with GWEN:

Visit theRobert HalfandProtivitiwebsites today to learn how weresupportingdiversityin accounting, finance, and other fields.

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ENGs Are Having a Moment And Presenting New Opportunities for Women in Finance to Seize - FEI Daily

In recent years, Big Tech executives have all said the same thing about the prospect of sweeping federal reform of legacy social media platforms: bring it on. By openly calling for regulation, Big Tech is luring Congress into stifling free market competitionand lawmakers are taking the bait.

At a recent hearing, the top executive of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, told the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security that the company supports federal oversight of the social media sector. He proposed implementing an industry panel that would regulate safety standards for social networking apps.

Mosseri explained that the panel would answer to policymakers but should have authority to punish tech companies that don't follow its directives. In other words, he called for a bureaucratic committee to regulate the behavior of his and other social media platforms.

The Instagram executive wasn't alone. Facebooknow Metahas published white papers exploring various possibilities for federal regulation. The company's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has publicly called for greater government involvement in the tech sector in areas such as elections, harmful content, privacy and data portability.

"I believe clearer rules would be better for everyone," Zuckerberg wrote last year. "The internet is a powerful force for social and economic empowerment. Regulation that protects people and supports innovation can ensure it stays that way."

As far back as 2019, Twitter's then-CEO Jack Dorsey expressed similar sentiments, declaring that "Generally, I think regulation is a good thing" and that government intervention would be a "net positive" for the tech sector.

There is a very good reason why all these legacy social media giants are so supportive of government action: federal regulations will make it even harder for new platforms to compete with established tech giants.

While mainstream social media networks have the resources to easily absorb the costs of regulatory action, smaller platforms will have to bear the brunt of new policies.

Comprehensive federal regulations are also an easy way for Big Tech to pass off its burden of responsibility to lawmakers. With the federal government in the lead, it would be impossible to demand accountability from Big Tech on issues such as data privacy, mental health and free speech. The duty to implement effective regulations will fall to the bureaucrats, not Big Tech executiveswhich is exactly why this scenario is appealing to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Big Tech's stance on government regulation raises an obvious questionif tech giants really wanted to bring about change, why are they waiting for the federal government? Nothing prevents legacy social media platforms from fixing their mistakes and improving user experiences right now. Instead, they are busy performing public relations stunts and funding marketing campaigns to clean up their tarnished reputations.

Presumably, this is not what most of the American people envision when they ask for accountability from Big Tech. And yet, it is exactly what we will get if Big Tech companies finally get their long-awaited big government oversight.

It must be said that total government inaction is not a solution, either. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, for instance, needs to be properly implemented and enforced to ensure that social media platforms lose their special legal privileges if they participate in political censorship. Even so, Congress needs to be careful about how it reforms Section 230 so as to avoid unintentionally harming smaller social media platforms.

To argue that sweeping government regulation is the only way to reform Big Tech is to pretend that the free market system is incapable of creating alternatives to legacy social media. The tech sector, after all, is not immune to the law of demand, which has driven millions of people to alternative platforms this year alone.

Big Tech's ongoing push for federal regulations is not about taking accountability for the industry's actionsit's about luring lawmakers into a regulatory trap that will stifle new social media ventures. Competition, not sweeping government action, is the key to reforming the world of social media.

Jeff Brain is the founder and CEO of a rising social media platform, CloutHub, which champions free speech, safeguards user privacy, and protects mental health. To learn more about CloutHub, visit http://www.clouthub.com/home.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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Big Tech is Luring Congress into a Regulation Trap | Opinion - Newsweek