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Parents in Israel urged to delete their children’s Tiktok app after large scale attack by Hamas.
The reason is that clips of dead and kidnapped people are circulating.
– Unfortunately, it is not possible to completely protect the children. Even if they are not on social media, their friends are there, says David Lange, who lives outside Tel Aviv.
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“Dear parents, we have received information that videos will soon be sent out where kidnapped people are begging for their lives. Please remove the Tiktok app from the children’s mobile phones”.
So read a Whatsapp message David Lange, 49, received from a parenting group yesterday.
The group has children at the school where David Lange’s 13-year-old daughter attends.
Lange, who runs the charity Israellycool Israel Advocacy, and lives with his family just outside Tel Aviv, has shared a translation on X, formerly Twitter.
“Angry and sad”
Aftonbladet has also seen the message in the original Hebrew language and had the content confirmed.
– I got angry and sad. Angry that the savages of Hamas could actually do such a thing. And sad that my children live in a world where they can be exposed to this evil, says David Lange to Aftonbladet.
Fortunately, the daughter does not have the Tiktok app on her phone.
– If she had it, I would definitely have encouraged her to remove it and explain why.
David Lange describes the last few days, since terrorist-branded Hamas carried out its attack on Israel on Saturday – in which several Israeli citizens were also kidnapped to Gaza, as a nightmare.
“Very difficult”
– We are having a very difficult time. It feels like we are living in a nightmare, but every morning we wake up and see that all these unimaginable evil things have actually happened.
Although the family is physically unharmed, they are grieving.
The stepdaughter’s boyfriend who is a soldier has been killed, and another friend of the children has also been killed. That’s how it looks for basically everyone David Lange knows in Israel.
– Basically everyone knows someone who has been killed.
Anxiety and worry
The Whatsapp message has been sent to more parent groups at other schools, and is signed by the “national parent leadership”, but Times of Israel have not been able to confirm that such an organization or association sent out the information.
Regardless, the newspaper notes, violent content from the bloody days in Israel and in the Palestinian territories is already spreading on social media.
David Lange says that his children have also previously seen violence on social media. Both the 13-year-old and her 16-year-old sister have reacted with anxiety and worry.
– I talk openly with them about everything terrible that is shared on social media, and ask them to avoid it as best they can. But unfortunately, it is not possible to completely protect the children. Even if they are not on social media, their friends are.