AI deepfake harassment is no longer an abstract risk for schools. In accounts shared with WIRED, teachers described students creating sexualized images and videos that used their faces, names or likenesses, then circulating that material online and among classmates.
The result is a new kind of workplace crisis for educators: one that can begin on a student’s phone, move across social platforms, and follow a teacher back into the classroom.
A substitute teacher became the target of an AI image
For Luis DeSantiago, a substitute teacher in Los Banos, California, the incident began on March 12 while he was working another part-time job at a coffee shop. A fellow barista told him that an AI photo was circulating on social media and that someone wanted to know whether it showed him.
DeSantiago initially assumed the image would be removed because it appeared to violate TikTok’s community guidelines. When he saw it, he recognized elements of a mirror selfie he remembered taking years earlier at a college job. But the altered version showed him wearing lingerie and posing suggestively.
The image did not remain a single post. DeSantiago identified a TikTok account that appeared connected to a student from the local middle school where he regularly worked. He also suspected other students based on the account’s interactions and his understanding of student friend groups.
He reported the situation to an assistant principal and later found another account impersonating him. That account used his name, slightly mispelled, and the same photo as its profile picture.
The harm moved across platforms and schools
Over the following weeks, DeSantiago says he communicated with school administrators, parents of students and the police. One student admitted creating the image and was disciplined with in-school suspension. DeSantiago was later told that the image had also been shared on Snapchat.
But the spread continued, according to his account. Other students posted the image, and DeSantiago says he received crude sexual comments on his TikTok account. He told administrators he did not want to accept assignments at the middle school “until this matter is fully addressed.”
The issue then followed him to the local high school. During one class, he received an AirDropped copy of the same AI-generated image before it was quickly revoked. He could tell the material was being passed around among students.
The principal said the school was starting an “immediate investigation” and offered a meeting or access to the school counselor. DeSantiago told WIRED that he probably would not return to the district this year because, at least for now, he does not feel safe doing so.
Other teachers described similar AI harassment
WIRED also spoke with three other teachers who said students made sexualized images and videos of them, likely using AI. Their accounts point to a pattern: public photos, social accounts and recognizable faces can be transformed into material that appears believable enough to confuse students and damage a teacher’s sense of safety.
One middle school teacher in her mid-twenties said she had seen enough AI-generated content used against teachers that she was already expecting more. She requested anonymity because she did not have permission from her school district to discuss her experience.
Last year, she said, students used public photos of a teacher in her sixties and manipulated them to make it appear that she was committing sex acts. The images were shared among students in a Snapchat group chat.
A few months ago, the same anonymous teacher learned from a student about a TikTok account impersonating her. She said the videos looked AI-generated: her face appeared unusually smooth, her mouth moved unnaturally, and the voice did not match her own. Some videos showed harmless invented scenes such as skydiving or backflips. Others portrayed her speaking about sexual acts.
She told her principal, who said they would “see what we can do.” Students continued warning her about the account through the day, and some said they knew which classmate had made it. She asked students to report the account to TikTok, and she says it was quickly taken down.
At a later teacher meeting, she mentioned the incident. A colleague said he had seen an apparently AI-generated fake video of himself getting arrested, which he believed had been created by the same student.
Schools face a workplace safety problem with no simple playbook
The source article describes several overlapping problems. The content may appear on platforms such as TikTok or Snapchat. It may also move privately through text messages, group chats or classroom sharing. For teachers, that means the harm can continue even when a visible account or post disappears.
DeSantiago raised this concern directly in a message to the principal. He wrote: “If these students aren't afraid of generating and posting these images of me, I am concerned of what they may be circulating privately through text messages and group chats.” He added: “Keep in mind this could include other students as well.”
Donna Ballman, a retired employment advocacy lawyer, told WIRED that if a student creates and shares sexual images of a teacher, it is a “clear case” of sexual harassment in the workplace. She said employers must create a workplace free of sexual harassment, though there is “no blueprint” for exactly how schools should respond.
Possible responses can include disciplining a student or moving that student to a different classroom. But Ballman noted that administrators do not have to tell the victimized teacher how a student was disciplined. In her words: “They just have to make [and] create a safe environment for the victim.”
Reporting systems are part of the gap
In most of the accounts WIRED described, teachers did not directly report the content to the platforms where it appeared. Snap spokesperson Monique Bellamy shared the company’s policies on harassment and sexual content, which prohibit sharing AI-generated or manipulated material meant to humiliate or sexually harass others.
Bellamy told WIRED that Snap has “established processes” for reporting that kind of content and continues to develop safety, privacy and well-being tools for its community. TikTok did not provide comment before publication.
The cases show why AI deepfakes in schools are not only a technology issue. They are also about trust, workplace protections, student discipline and the ability of teachers to return to classrooms without fear that fabricated sexual content will follow them there.