Quarantined Wuhan kids hacked their way out of app

Kids are amazing. Even in, or perhaps especially in, difficult times.

As the world frets over the novel coronavirus outbreak that's killed thousands, children at the epidemic's epicenter found a creative way to get out of doing schoolwork.

A report in the London Review of Books detailed what life has been like in Wuhan, the area in China where the new coronavirus first broke out. Among the harrowing details, there was one lighthearted bit of information.

Schools were shut down as the spread worsened. And the quarantined kids were relieved to be off school ... until they learned an app called DingTalk had been adopted so kids could get lessons and homework remotely. But that didn't stop the children from beating the system.

The LRB article noted:

"Somehow the little brats worked out that if enough users gave the app a one-star review it would get booted off the App Store. Tens of thousands of reviews flooded in, and DingTalk’s rating plummeted overnight from 4.9 to 1.4. The app has had to beg for mercy on social media: 'I'm only five years old myself, please don’t kill me.'"

Those rascals. What ingenuity.

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And listen, the coronavirus outbreak is scary, deadly, and, well, it doesn't seem like things are going to improve anytime soon. All we can do is wash our hands, listen to advice from health officials, and try to keep our collective anxiety in check as the virus spreads throughout the world in the weeks and months to come. Oh and try to stop touching your face.

But all that aside, amid those fears, we can at least we can revel in our shared humanity. And there is nothing more human than some wildly creative kids finding an ingenious way to get out of school work.