A student-run gossip page focused on life at Forest Hills High School ended almost as mysteriously as it began.
A Facebook page that was dedicated to Forest Hills High School students’ “confessions” was taken after a threat was posted last week. Photo courtesy Michael Perlman/Rego-Forest Preservation Council)
The anonymous “Forest Hills HS Confessions” Facebook page was once home to an array of in the know and off-the-cuff remarks about student life at the school. But after making news last week when one anonymous post alluded to violent threats at the school, the online bulletin board has been taken down.
Saul Gootnick, principal of Forest Hills High, did not comment, and members of the Forest Hills-based Community Education Council 28 said they did not know who was behind the page.
Facebook’s online policy said pages could only be removed by those who created it, and not by third parties. A spokeswoman for the city’s Education Department said Gootnick had worked with the police and his administration to have the page taken down, but did not know who made the final click.
The last straw came when one post last Tuesday alerted the authorities to what could have been a dangerous day at the school.
“Seriously, don’t come to school, unless you want to be in the news,” the post read.
Police were investigating hard by the early morning hours of Wednesday, but later said the posts had no base in reality.
“Someone had posted a message alluding to the fact that something would happen in the school,” a spokesman for the NYPD said last week. “The investigation came back with negative results.”
The threats did little to spook the actual students who followed the page, however. The two threatening posts were then followed with sarcastic responses ranging anywhere from, “Who cares,” to “Oh boy, I’m guessing senior prank.”
Aside from the apparent threat, Forest Hills HS Confessions was also home to a less obvious, but perhaps more dangerous kind of dialogue. By the time the page was taken down, it had become the gossip headquarters for the students who followed it.
Students used the anonymous forum to personally attack one another over things like their weight or status within the school. It had been live for several months before the one post suggesting violent acts inside the school brought it to the attention of parents and cops.
It was not the school’s first time in the spotlight of the news cycle. Students there found themselves at the forefront of another Internet trend in early 2013 when they staged a gigantic flash mob dance of the Harlem Shake in the school’s main lobby, resulting in some students being suspended or even arrested.
By Phil Corso
