Students at a Pennsylvania middle school created nearly two dozen TikTok accounts impersonating their teachers and making vulgar jokes and disturbing claims about them and their families, including that the teachers were pedophiles.
Fake TikToks continue to circulate despite efforts by moderators, who say some of the accounts are protected by the First Amendment.
Even after police got involved, some eighth-graders remain rebellious.
“Move on. Learn to joke. I’m 13 and you’re around 40 or 50,” one student said. According to the New York Times: — He then claimed they would continue posting the videos on private accounts because “they wouldn’t be able to do anything else.”
Starting in February, students at Great Valley Middle School in Malvern, a wealthy, leafy suburb about an hour west of Philadelphia, created at least 22 TikTok accounts in the names of teachers and staff members and bombarded their targets with sexual, homophobic and racist jokes.
One of the accounts, created under the name of Great Valley Spanish teacher Patrice Motz, used the handle @patrice.motz and posted photos of her with her husband and young children at the beach.
The caption on the video read, “Do you like touching kids?” to which the answer was “Yes.”
Another account posted a photo of a semi-nude couple in bed with the faces of two male teachers superimposed onto their bodies, while a third account, claiming to be social studies teacher Sean Whitelock, hijacked a photo of his own wedding and cut out his wife to make it appear he was marrying a student council member.
“I can touch you,” the account @shawn.whitelock commented on the post.
Accounts impersonating at least 20 staff members – roughly a quarter of the school’s teaching staff – were created using photos stolen from personal social media accounts.
The post garnered hundreds of views, comments and follows from students, according to the Times.
Teachers who were targeted by the accounts said they felt “kicked in the stomach” and violated by the posts, and said they were frightened about the influence social media can have on teenagers.
“A lot of my students spend hours on TikTok, and I think it just desensitizes them to the fact that we are real people,” said Bettina Sibilia, who has been teaching English for nearly 20 years.
“They had no idea how illegal it was to create these accounts, impersonate us and mock our children and the things we love,” said Sibilia, who was targeted by two different accounts.
Motz said the reports were “deeply disappointing” and made him question why he was still teaching at the school where he had worked for 14 years.
Whitelock, a teacher for 27 years, said she felt her reputation had been tarnished.
“The impersonation has ruined my character and denigrated me and my family in the process,” he told The Times.
After coming to the attention of administrators, several students were suspended.
But school officials said they were left with few options other than to inform parents, admonish the eighth-graders and hold assemblies to educate students about online safety.
“While it may be easy to react by suggesting the school should have disciplined the students more harshly, some, but not all, of their actions are protected by the right to free speech and expression,” Great Valley School District Superintendent Daniel Goffredo said in a statement on the district’s website.
“We also ask that you use this summer to talk with your children about the responsible use of technology, especially social media. What may seem like a joke can have deep, long-lasting effects not only on those targeted, but also on the students themselves. Our best defense is to work together,” Goffredo wrote.
At a press conference on Monday, Goffredo said the accounts continued to pop up over the summer despite schools and police monitoring social media.
“We understand that the accounts continued to be created throughout the summer, and it is unfortunate, embarrassing and disappointing that students continue to engage in this behavior,” Goffredo said.
Some of the accounts continue to appear but most have been taken down, including one where the two girls involved have attempted to apologise.
“Obviously, we didn’t mean to let it get this bad. We didn’t want to get suspended,” one of the girls said.
The Great Valley School District did not respond to a request for comment.
