How the 'red v blue school wars' exposed the social media gap between children and parents

## Summary
How the 'red v blue school wars' exposed the social media gap between children and parents 2 days ago Share Save Marianna Spring Social Media Investigations Correspondent Share Save BBC Friday February 27th should have been like any other day at secondary schools in Southwark and Croydon in south London. Snap removed a small number of posts for violating their community guidelines - and according to TikTok, there were only a small number of searches for School Wars until it received wider attention from parents and media. "We have to take it seriously when parents and kids do - even if the people who came up with it weren't that serious," one police detective told me on the condition of anonymity. "I've found the real life (over-)reaction fascinating to watch." So is this an example of what is known as a phantom trend, where fear can end up exacerbating the real-world impact rather than mitigating it? The Red v Blue Trend ​​It was back in mid February when the first school wars posters seemed to pop up on social media from accounts based in east and south London. These things develop their own internal logic, their own mythology, and they're not designed to be understood by parents or police or journalists, they're a community talking to itself in its own language." The parent factor When some parents discovered the 'red v blue' posts, the posters were forwarded to parental WhatsApp and Facebook groups and schools were made aware.

## Article Content
How the 'red v blue school wars' exposed the social media gap between children and parents
2 days ago
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Marianna Spring
Social Media Investigations Correspondent
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BBC
Friday February 27th should have been like any other day at secondary schools in Southwark and Croydon in south London. But instead, when lessons finished for the day around 3pm, large numbers of teachers positioned themselves on streets around their schools as children made their way home.
In some places, after-school detentions were cancelled so pupils could get home as early as possible. There were police officers present too in some places and they had at their disposal dispersal orders that would allow officers to order any young people gathered to leave a particular area.
The prompt was concern over a series of social media posts that called for 'red v blue' wars between schools across the city. The posters began encouraging battles between students in the capital and seemed to begin circulating on TikTok and Snapchat. Copycat versions were subsequently shared about schools in Bristol, Cardiff and the West Midlands. The posters - one half red, one half blue - often feature images of people in balaclavas, weapons and lists of different school names listed on either side. In theory, fights were due to happen in south London that afternoon, hence the presence of teachers and police.
Only, the fights didn't happen - for their part, the Metropolitan Police say no actual violent incidents related to the posters have been reported.
TikTok/Instagram
The posters, which appeared to advertise fights outside London schools, appeared on social media last month
Taken at face value, the whole incident appears to be another example of social media's apparently massive ability to influence our young people. But was something else at play?
Notably - from tracking down some of the original posts and speaking to people within the social media companies - there appears to have been only a modest reaction among young people when the posts first appeared. Instead, the real interest began after it started being shared across parent WhatsApp groups.
Look in the comments on the now viral posters and you find teenagers joking about what side they were on, saying they'd only heard about the posts from their parents' group chats.
Snap removed a small number of posts for violating their community guidelines - and according to TikTok, there were only a small number of searches for School Wars until it received wider attention from parents and media.
"We have to take it seriously when parents and kids do - even if the people who came up with it weren't that serious," one police detective told me on the condition of anonymity.
"I've found the real life (over-)reaction fascinating to watch."
So is this an example of what is known as a phantom trend, where fear can end up exacerbating the real-world impact rather than mitigating it? And what does it reveal about the gap between how children and their parents experience social media?
The Red v Blue Trend
​​It was back in mid February when the first school wars posters seemed to pop up on social media from accounts based in east and south London. The schools listed were in Hackney and in Croydon - encouraging students to meet up on particular days and locations to fight.
The origin of the first posts are murky - but several TikTok accounts I've tracked down tell me they believe they were made by teenagers or young people who live locally because of the style of the posts and the particular schools they referenced.
"These young kids think it's cool trying to create an "og" [original gangster] gang war, blue vs red," one gaming account called Panos told me.
The posters build on a wider "red v blue" trend - where users create videos and encourage people to choose the red or the blue side based around different issues. For example, users are asked to choose between two phones or two characters, one who is categorised as red and the other as blue.
"I'm not sure where they originated — I [saw] it on Snapchat where everything posted has only 24 hours… then it disappears," another gamer from Bristol told me.
The posters appear to have been created using AI and this made them look fairly slick and professional. It also makes it trickier to locate their origin, especially since social media accounts thought to have been behind them were subsequently banned.
Sander Van Der Linden, a professor of social psychology at the University of Cambridge, says the posts were deliberately designed to trigger a reaction.
"I think it's important for parents, teachers, and students to realise that in-group vs out-group psychology [an us versus them mentality] is often exploited by social media algorithms to create division," he explains.
TikTok/Instagram
Some of the posters were made with AI, making them appear slick and professional
His team published a study in the National Academy of Science journal in 2021 looking at millions

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## Expert Analysis

### Merits
- Sander Van Der Linden, a professor of social psychology at the University of Cambridge, says the posts were deliberately designed to trigger a reaction. "I think it's important for parents, teachers, and students to realise that in-group vs out-group psychology [an us versus them mentality] is often exploited by social media algorithms to create division," he explains.
- They say both were arrested "on suspicion of encouraging or assisting in a crime" and that "they were bailed pending further enquiries". "Local officers continue to work alongside local authority partners, school leaders and parents, whose joint robust response has been vital in protecting young people across the last week," a spokesperson from the Metropolitan police told the BBC last week.
- There was also a safeguarding assembly at the school about it." She says as far as she knows, "there wasn't any actual fighting and this was something that was just concocted on social media", which the children seemed to find out about "after the adults were aware of it". ​​According to the detective, once teachers became involved, there was a huge amount of "pressure" on the police to do something, especially with some worried parents keeping their children off school. "One thing we're increasingly teaching is a concept called "critical ignoring" which will become more important in the face of AI-generated slop, where sometimes it's better to just ignore low-quality stuff," explains Dr.
- Bloomberg via Getty Images Some worried parents began sharing the posters on parental Facebook groups "I think it's important that we educate teens, parents, and teachers about how algorithms and social media might exploit our psychological biases to sow division and elicit violence." One solution Dr.

### Areas for Consideration
- How the 'red v blue school wars' exposed the social media gap between children and parents 2 days ago Share Save Marianna Spring Social Media Investigations Correspondent Share Save BBC Friday February 27th should have been like any other day at secondary schools in Southwark and Croydon in south London.
- The prompt was concern over a series of social media posts that called for 'red v blue' wars between schools across the city.
- And what does it reveal about the gap between how children and their parents experience social media?

### Implications
- How the 'red v blue school wars' exposed the social media gap between children and parents 2 days ago Share Save Marianna Spring Social Media Investigations Correspondent Share Save BBC Friday February 27th should have been like any other day at secondary schools in Southwark and Croydon in south London.
- In some places, after-school detentions were cancelled so pupils could get home as early as possible.
- TikTok/Instagram The posters, which appeared to advertise fights outside London schools, appeared on social media last month Taken at face value, the whole incident appears to be another example of social media's apparently massive ability to influence our young people.
- Snap removed a small number of posts for violating their community guidelines - and according to TikTok, there were only a small number of searches for School Wars until it received wider attention from parents and media. "We have to take it seriously when parents and kids do - even if the people who came up with it weren't that serious," one police detective told me on the condition of anonymity. "I've found the real life (over-)reaction fascinating to watch." So is this an example of what is known as a phantom trend, where fear can end up exacerbating the real-world impact rather than mitigating it?

### Expert Commentary
This article covers media, social, parents topics. Notable strengths include discussion of media. Areas of concern are also raised. Readability: Flesch-Kincaid grade 0.0. Word count: 2529.