SnapChat

A video recently circulated on social media appears to show a group of Lehigh Valley students completing the viral “George Floyd Challenge,” a social media trend started last year on SnapChat in which teenagers, predominantly white, reenact Floyd’s death. In the video, a boy mockingly moans “I can’t breathe” as another kneels on his neck on a patch of grass, the latter’s right fist raised in the air. “Hey, lookit, guys” a girl’s voice says, punctuated by laughs. The boy kneeling on the other’s neck turns and looks at the camera. The video, as well as a photo showing two boys reenacting Floyd’s death, have been widely circulated on social media. An investigation by officials at both the Parkland and Southern Lehigh school districts found that the images weren’t created on school property or with school devices, leaving them without the power to discipline students. However, one Lehigh Valley civil rights leader is calling for criminal charges to be filed against the students involved and for school officials to inform the community about steps they are taking against racism. “Examples should be made of these students,” Bethlehem NAACP President Esther Lee said Thursday. “I don’t know which school district the…

Welcome to Hillicon Valley, The Hill's newsletter detailing all you need to know about the tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. If you don’t already, be sure to sign up for our newsletter by clicking HERE.Welcome! Follow our cyber reporter, Maggie Miller (@magmill95), and tech team, Chris Mills Rodrigo (@chrisismills) and Rebecca Klar (@rebeccaklar_), for more coverage.Parler said it will be back in the Apple App Store this week with approved changes, but those updates may come with the risk of losing the platform’s base users over accusations of selling out to Big Tech and losing its pro-free speech model. Speaking of free speech, a high schooler’s Snapchat about failing to make the varsity cheerleading team is at the center of a crucial First Amendment Supreme Court case. And pressure is mounting for Google to take action in line with its public statements on race, with a civil rights organization calling on the company to conduct a racial equity audit. PARLER’S UNCERTAIN PATH FORWARD: Parler is returning to Apple’s App Store after making some changes demanded by the company, but the social media platform popular with conservatives is facing accusations of selling out to Big Tech and…

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Westside High School officials said Wednesday that they are looking into a Snapchat image posted by a student who said it was a re-enactment of George Floyd’s killing.In the image shared to a private Snapchat group, a Westside High student is shown kneeling on another student’s neck with text incentivizing sharing their “@” with — or tagging — the user.School officials said both students involved were willing participants who “made a very poor choice,” according to letters sent to students and families from Principal Jay Opperman and Robert Aranda, director of student services.“They did not have ill intent,” the letter states.Administrators also notified Omaha Police of the incident, according to the letter.Good morning,We want to make you aware of an investigation taking place at Westside High School involving a concerning and disturbing social media post. A picture shows a Westside High student, inside school, kneeling on another student’s neck. All have indicated they were willing participants and no one was hurt. From our discussions with these students, their intention was to reenact the George Floyd event after seeing something online, but they said that they did not have ill intent; they made a very poor choice…

Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center, at Middle Tennessee State University, is available to provide expertise on how First Amendment rights apply to social media.  On Mahony Area School District v. B.L., for which arguments are on Wednesday, April 28, Paulson says  “Freedom of Speech is not something awarded with a high school diploma. These are citizens with a right to speak out about the operations of a public school, and the U.S. Supreme Court has the opportunity to make that clear.”Paulson's op-ed "Cheerleader case could bolster - or damage - students' speech rights" is available for reprint.Paulson is former editor-in-chief of USA Today, where he remains a columnist writing about First Amendment and media issues. He founded the Free Speech Center at MTSU in 2019. He was executive director of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University and served as the center’s president and CEO before that. Paulson speaks widely on First Amendment issues and has been quoted extensively in media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA TODAY, ESPN, CBS Evening News and Newsweek. Paulson has testified before Congress as a First Amendment expert. He has a juris doctorate and is a member of both the Illinois…

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RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — Federal prosecutors say they filed animal cruelty charges against a California man who posted a video on Snapchat after cutting a puppy’s throat. Angel Ramos-Corrales, 19, was arrested Monday at his Riverside home on a charge of animal crushing, a federal crime for causing serious injury that carries up to a seven-year prison sentence if convicted. Court records say Ramos-Corrales slashed the throat of his puppy, Canelo, on Feb. 13 at his home and then kicked the gravely wounded dog. An FBI agent says the suspect didn’t remember what he had done, but said he lost control when the dog nipped him. 

by: Sareen Habeshian Posted: Apr 26, 2021 / 05:02 PM PDT / Updated: Apr 26, 2021 / 05:25 PM PDT Angel Ramos-Corrales is seen in a February 2021 booking photo. (Riverside Police Department) A 19-year-old Riverside man was arrested Monday on a federal charge alleging that he slit the throat of a dog and posted a video of the dying puppy on Snapchat, officials said. Angel Ramos-Corrales was named in a federal criminal complaint filed Friday, charging him with animal crushing — a federal crime of purposely subjecting certain types of animals to serious bodily injury not related to hunting or other lawful activity, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a news release. The animal crushing statute carries a sentence of up to seven years in federal prison. Riverside Police received a complaint on Feb. 13, after Ramos-Corrales allegedly posted a video to Snapchat, showing a small brown dog with a large laceration on its neck, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said, citing the affidavit in support of the complaint. In the video, Ramos-Corrales allegedly made a series of statements including, “I’m cold-hearted,” and then kicked the dog, which he had named Canelo, who was…

Instead, an adolescent outburst and the adult reaction to it has arrived at the Supreme Court, where it could determine how the First Amendment’s protection of free speech applies to the off-campus activities of the nation’s 50 million public school students.Story continues below advertisement“Much of the speech from students is off-campus and increasingly online,” Driver said. “When I talk to school administrators, they consistently tell me that off-campus speech bedevils them, and the lower courts desperately need some guidance in this area.”That shouldn’t be a surprise, as cellphones have become an extension of almost every teenager’s hand and social media a preferred mode of communication. And for the past year, many students have not gone near a school campus, with their “speech” happening in their homes during Zoom classes.Story continues below advertisementThe First Amendment does not “force schools to ignore student speech that upends the campus environment simply because that speech originated off campus,” says a brief filed by Mahanoy Area School District, which upheld the school’s decision to kick Levy off the cheer squad.“Wherever student speech originates, schools should be able to treat students alike when their speech is directed at the school and imposes the same disruptive harms…

Invalid EmailSomething went wrong, please try again later.When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Your information will be used in accordance with ourPrivacy Notice.In Merseyside's courts we often see disgusting paedophiles indulging in sick webchats with children who they target online. Sometimes predators will try to speak to a child only to be duped by undercover police officers or paedophile hunter groups. But other times they succeed in talking to children about their vile fantasies. There are certain apps which appear in these types of court cases time and time again. Paedophiles can use these platforms to groom and abuse children - or at least try to. In one case paedophile John Smith was already convicted of using Snapchat to target young boys - before going back and grooming another boy on the app, encouraging him to meet up. Below are some of the apps which are frequently used by predators trying to hunt out and target unsuspecting victims. Snapchat Snapchat is a popular social media app which lets users send images which then "self-destruct". One of the features of Snapchat is you're able to see where users are based on their…

A 14-year-old Shallowater girl found herself trapped by an Alabama man's control within six months of meeting him online through Snapchat in 2019.Court records show Bo Jack Kelley, of Cullman, Alabama, first posed as a 19-year-old man and befriended the girl in June of 2019. As he gained her trust, he convinced her to send him a video of her performing a sexual act. By November of that year, Kelley began demanding more images and materials from the girl and threatened to send the ones she'd already sent to her family, and showed her screenshots of their social media accounts to reinforce his threat.It worked. The girl sent him at least four more videos before authorities learned about the abuse in February 2020, when Kelley sent videos of the girl to her mother after she stopped responding to him. In January, Kelley was sentenced 30 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a count of production of child pornography. The case is part of a national growing trend of child exploitation. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, incidents of online enticement increased by 97.5% in 2020.April is child abuse awareness month and experts are encouraging parents to teach…