FBI: Posting social media threats has real world consequences

Posting a threat of violence or harm online carries the consequence of spending five years behind bars in federal prison.

Local officials from Buffalo's FBI office spoke to students at the Ken-ton Erie 1 BOCES Career Center about hoax threats. The students were all criminal justice students, interested in pursuing a career in either practicing law or law enforcement. 

The program, called #ThinkBeforeYouPost, highlighted the 400% increase in threats of school violence since the Parkland School Shooting in Florida. 

Maureen Dempsey, public affairs officer of the FBI's Buffalo office, says local law enforcement agencies investigate school threats on average about four times a week. While many of the threats are non-credible, they still take significant resources from law enforcement and waste precious class time for students and teachers.

Within the last week, an 11 year-old boy from the Rochester area appeared in family court for making violent threats on Xbox.