On December 12 a video of the young teen Keaton Jones was posted on Twitter. The video contained Jones sobbing recounting a mishap at school earlier that day. Jones claimed his bullies “poured food down his clothes and called him ugly and friendless”. Immediately Twitter took Jones’ defense. Celebrities such as Chris Evans, Millie Bobby Brown, and multiple professional athletes praised Jones for standing up for himself and bringing such a serious issue to light. Evans even invited Jones down to the premier of his new “Avengers” premier.

However the more people took pity, the more the truth actually came out. It turns out the Jones family are strong supporters of the Confederacy. In fact, the day the video of Keaton was shot, he was calling fellow students racial slurs and bullying peers due to their race. There was a strong debate over which was the real story and ultimately no new information has come out.

Many are understandably outraged as Jones has acquired almost $60,000 from a GoFundMe account. Even more than the issue of money is the issue that an eleven-year-old girl, Toni Rivers, committed suicide last month due to bullying. There was no strong media attention or any outreach from celebrities offering to help Rivers’ family.

There are countless instances of children taking to social media to tackle the topic of bullying such as Nyeeam Hudson another young influencer whose mother posted a video of him speaking about how to treat people respectfully and how to just be nice.

Here are the links to both bullying videos:

Hudson’s: http://6abc.com/society/after-sneaker-taunt-10-year-old-nj-boy-has-message-for-kids/1454572/

Jones’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz1xzBYppW8