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Forest Hills HS Gossip Facebook Page Removed After Threat

By Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska | January 17, 2014 12:33pm
 Forest Hills High School.
Forest Hills High School.
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QUEENS — A Facebook gossip page set up by Forest Hills High School teens was shut down by the school and the NYPD Thursday after a pair of posts warned students not to come to the school unless they wanted “to be in the news,” authorities said.

The posts, written anonymously on Jan. 14, said "don't come to school tomorrow because something big is going to happen," followed by another comment saying "seriously don't come to school unless you want to be in the news."

Marge Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said that “this matter was looked into and was unfounded," referring to the threat.

"The school worked with NYPD and extra security was at the school," she said in an email.

Police said that they were investigating the issue.

The website, called "Forest Hills HS Confessions," was shut down on Thursday afternoon, as first reported by the New York Post.

“The principal explained that the website was taken down in a collaboration with the school and NYPD,” Feinberg said.

It was not clear how the site was taken down. Matt Steinfeld of Facebook said that "third parties can not 'shut down' Facebook pages."

"Either the person/persons administrating the page can unpublish it, or Facebook can remove it if it violates our Community Standards," he said in an email.

Steinfeld also said that it appeared that Facebook had not removed the page.

The Forest Hills website contained hundreds of anonymously posted comments and gossip, such as, “fat girls need to stop wearing crop tops because I don't want to see any muffin tops or rolls."

The principal, Saul Gootnick, was not available for comment.