'War on Christmas' hoax provokes threats against SF school

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- San Francisco police increased security at a school that received threats when a fake online story on the so-called war on Christmas went viral, officials said.

San Francisco Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Leticia Salinas told the San Francisco Chronicle police added patrols around Argonne Elementary School. The district assigned an extra campus security guard and school administrators called an emergency meeting for teachers to review security procedures, after the school received at least 75 complaints about the hoax -- which first appeared on a satire website and spread to social media including Facebook and Twitter.

Some of the complaints came in the form of veiled threats, the newspaper said.

The story that touched off outrage among some who fell for it said a fourth-grader at "Argon Elementary" was suspended for one week for saying "Merry Christmas" to his atheist homeroom teacher. National Report, which first posted the item, subsequently edited the report, changing the name of the fictitious school to "Anon."

The story called the purported incident an example of the war on Christmas, a favorite topic this time of year in right-wing media, the Chronicle said.

The school started getting angry calls Dec. 12, and the calls have persisted this week -- with the school secretary spending hours assuring callers the story is fake, Salinas said.

"What was mostly upsetting was some of the references of what people should do to the teacher," she said.

Brendan Nyhan, assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., told the Chronicle the gut reaction from complainers illustrates people's tendency to "seize onto these online nuggets that confirm what they believe."