After School lets students post anonymous messages for other students at their school to read. As you can imagine, such an app provides the perfect grounds for cyberbullying and school threats — and that’s what happened on Wednesday at a Detroit high school, reports CBS Detroit.
A 17-year-old student was arrested after posting a disturbing message to the service: “Tomorrow I’m gonna shoot and kill every last one of you, and it’s going to be bigger than Columbine…Death to you all.” While the student did post the message anonymously, authorities obtained a subpoena in order to identify him. The charges look serious, as he could be facing 10 to 20 years in jail.
“As we move forward from this event, this may be a great time to talk to your sons and daughters about social media,” said the school’s superintendent. “There is nothing that is truly anonymous in this forum, and their involvement in social media needs to be very responsible.”
As a result of the incident, After School — which has been available in the App Store since October — has been taken down, with no indication as to if or when it will return. Unfortunately for the app’s developers, this is far from the first incident of its kind. Last week, the app was taken down after a Michigan high school student posted a gun threat. And schools across metro Detroit warned parents about After School due to claims of cyberbullying, while a Michigan student started a petition to get After School banned from the App Store.
While the app returned a few days afterwards, we don’t know for how long it will stay this time.
