A highly worrisome tendency that began to spread across TikTok in 2021 but is still relatively unknown to the general public. As a result of the tendency, the 24th of April, which is allegedly Sexual Assault Awareness Month, has become unofficially designated as “National Rape Day.” A video is said to have been discovered on the Chinese video hosting service TikTok in which a group of guys allegedly encourage other individuals to commit sexual assault on this day by saying that it is permissible to do so.
However, in a statement provided to the media site USA Today, TikTok verified that the alleged original video cannot be located on its platform.
TikTok users responded to the trend by producing hundreds of more videos to share on the platform. Some of these reactions videos offered tips to women on how to keep themselves safe. On April 24, people were advising women to be cautious and remain indoors on the films that were posted online. They continued by advising the women to only travel in groups whenever possible.
Other videos that appeared on TikTok as a response to the troubling trend sent a warning to anyone who commits sexual assault on this day. These videos were posted as a reaction to the disturbing trend.
“Keeping our community safe is our priority, and we do not tolerate content that promotes or glorifies non-consensual sexual acts including rape and sexual assault,” a spokesman for TikTok noted in an email that was sent to USA Today at the time.
“While we have not found any evidence on our platform of any videos related to this subject, our safety team is remaining vigilant, and we will remove content that violates our policies.”
USA Today looked through more than a hundred videos on TikTok tagged with the hashtag #april24, but they were unable to find an instance of the reportedly original video that contained threatening content. Although several of the producers stated that they had seen the video, they did not link any of their posts to the film itself, which casts question on whether or not the original video actually does exist.
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Due to the fact that the original video could not be located throughout the course of the inquiry, USA Today has determined that the allegation that a gang of males on TikTok are planning to sexually assault women on April 24 in observance of the unofficially declared “National Rape Day” is false. The allegation was reported by USA Today.
Even though there were a large number of replies on social media, neither USA Today nor TikTok were able to find any proof that the video in question actually made the alleged threat. There are a number of media outlets that have reported on this pattern; however, none of them have provided any evidence to support whether or not the first video actually did exist or whether it is merely one of a series of fabricated claims.
A significant number of law enforcement officers have gotten on board with the trend and have started filming reaction films. After receiving a lot of attention, the practise gained the attention of the police, who apparently issued a warning to any future attackers that they would arrest them.
In the week leading up to the publication of the fact-check report by USA Today, “National Rape Day” was the subject of over a thousand posts on Facebook and over fifty posts on Instagram.