In February, Patrice Motz, a veteran Spanish teacher at Great Valley Middle School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, received an unsettling warning from a colleague: trouble was brewing. Eighth graders at the public school had set up TikTok accounts impersonating teachers, spreading malicious content that targeted the educators.
Motz, unfamiliar with TikTok, created an account to investigate. She discovered a fake profile, @patrice.motz, featuring a real photo of her family at the beach. The image was overlaid with disturbing text in Spanish: “Do you like to touch kids?” and the response, “SÃ.”
Over the following days, about 20 educators—nearly a quarter of the school’s faculty—found themselves victims of these fake accounts, which included pedophilia innuendo, racist memes, homophobic content, and fabricated sexual encounters among teachers. Hundreds of students viewed, followed, or commented on the fraudulent profiles.
The incident prompted the school district to briefly suspend several students. During a lunch period, the principal admonished the eighth-grade class for their behavior.
Teachers like Motz were left reeling. “I felt kicked in the stomach,” Motz said, expressing her shock at how students had so easily targeted their teachers’ families. The harassment left educators concerned about the role of social media in stunting students’ empathy. Some teachers hesitated to discipline students in class, while others struggled to continue teaching.
“It was so deflating,” said Motz, who has taught at the school for 14 years. “I can’t believe I still get up and do this every day.”
This incident marked the first known group TikTok attack by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States. It represented a significant escalation in how students harass educators online. Previously, students typically impersonated one teacher or principal at a time.
The Great Valley attack highlighted broader issues concerning students’ misuse of popular online tools. In response, some states and districts have restricted or banned student cellphone use in schools to limit peer harassment and cyberbullying on platforms like TikTok.
“We didn’t have to deal with teacher-targeting at this scale before,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association. “It’s not only demoralizing. It could push educators to question, ‘Why would I continue in this profession if students are doing this?'”
The Great Valley School District addressed the incident, describing it as “a gross misuse of social media that profoundly impacted our staff.” Despite the district’s efforts, the damage to the teachers’ reputations and mental health was significant.
Last month, two female students posted an “apology” video on TikTok, using the name of a seventh-grade teacher. They described the impostor videos as a joke and claimed that teachers had overreacted. “We never meant for it to get this far, obviously,” one student said. “I never wanted to get suspended.” The other added, “Move on. Learn to joke,” before using an expletive to emphasize her age in comparison to the teachers.
A TikTok spokesperson stated that the platform prohibits misleading behavior and that their U.S.-based security team validates ID information in impersonation cases.
For the teachers at Great Valley, the incident disrupted their close-knit community. They continue to grapple with the violation of their privacy and the erosion of trust between students and educators. As they push for better policies and education on responsible tech use, the fallout from the TikTok impersonations remains a cautionary tale about the darker side of social media.
Students target teachers in group TikTok attack, shaking their school #TikTokAttack https://t.co/YwNhN0n3ar
— Express Technology (@ExpressTechie) July 7, 2024