End the fights for likes

Scottish Government, schools and police work together to launch new campaign aimed at tackling youth violence

- CHRIS MCCALL and RUTH SUTER

THE trend for filming violent attacks by teen thugs for social media "likes" is set to be tackled by a new campaign.

Young Scots will be urged to think twice and stop sharing violent footage on social media as part of the campaign involving the Scottish Government, Police Scotland's Violence Reduction Unit and school bosses.

The move is a victory for the Daily Record's Our Kids... Our Future campaign, which has called for tech giants like Instagram to crackdown on the amount of violent videos shared on their platforms.

The Quit Fighting For Likes project follows an explosion in videos uploaded to platforms like Tik Tok and YouTube of kids involved in brutal acts of violence, with many clips filmed by pupils on school grounds.

The harrowing footage is often viewed thousands of times before the videos are finally removed, causing further pain for victims. We previously told how the mum of an autistic teen who was lured into a park and battered hit out at the social media giant after it failed to remove a clip of the attack.

The video has been tormenting 13-year-old Abbie Jarvis since she was assaulted on October 4, 2022.

It shows Abbie, 12 at the time, being kicked on the head and body at the skatepark in Drumchapel, Glasgow, and set upon by a girl she thought was her friend.