Teachers Face AI-Generated Sexual Deepfakes Made by Students

Educators Targeted by Student-Created Deepfakes

Luis DeSantiago, a substitute teacher in Los Banos, California, received text messages on March 12 alerting him to an AI-manipulated photo circulating on social media. The image took a mirror selfie he had once posted and altered it to show him wearing lingerie in a suggestive pose. What followed was a monthslong ordeal involving multiple schools, administrators, and police—and DeSantiago is far from alone.

WIRED spoke with three additional teachers who say students created sexualized deepfake images and videos of them. The incidents have left educators questioning their safety, their relationships with students, and whether they can continue working in their districts.

How the Incidents Unfolded

After identifying the TikTok account that shared his manipulated photo, DeSantiago reported it to school administrators at the middle school where he regularly substituted. One student admitted to creating the image and received in-school suspension. But the content continued spreading, appearing on Snapchat and reaching students at the local high school where DeSantiago later took an assignment. During one class, he received an AirDropped copy of the same image before it was quickly revoked.

DeSantiago told administrators he wouldn't return to the middle school until the matter was fully addressed. He says he doesn't feel safe working in the district this year.

A middle school teacher in her mid-twenties described discovering a TikTok account impersonating her with AI-generated videos. Some showed her performing backflips or skydiving. Others depicted her discussing sexual acts. Students who saw the account believed it was real. The same student allegedly created a fake video of another teacher getting arrested and later subjected the teacher to escalating in-person harassment before leaving the district.

In the UK, a college counselor named Alice learned that students were circulating a manipulated video showing her removing her clothes. The incident forced her to reconsider conversations she'd had with the student she suspected created it—discussions about sensitive topics like safe sex that were part of her role as a youth worker.

Legal and Policy Gaps

Creating and sharing fake nude images of nonconsenting adults could constitute cyberstalking under federal law. The Take It Down Act makes it a crime to publish nonconsensual intimate visual depictions, including computer-generated ones. Employment lawyer Donna Ballman told WIRED that students creating sexual images of teachers constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace, obligating schools to create safe environments for victimized staff.

However, there's no standard blueprint for how schools must respond. Administrators aren't required to disclose disciplinary actions taken against students. In the cases WIRED reviewed, responses ranged from brief suspensions to removing students from classes, but teachers often felt the measures were inadequate.

Most of the teachers didn't directly report content to the platforms where it appeared. Snap said it has policies prohibiting AI-generated content used to humiliate or sexually harass others and processes for reporting such material. TikTok didn't provide comment.

Why It Matters

These incidents expose critical vulnerabilities in how schools and platforms handle AI-generated harassment. Teachers describe feeling unsafe in their workplaces and questioning relationships they've built with students over years. The cases also highlight how easily accessible generative AI tools have become for young users—and how unprepared institutions are to address the consequences. As one teacher put it, the concern isn't just what happened to her, but what students might be doing to each other in private group chats.

Luke Red, a sixth-grade teacher in Arizona whose students circulated an AI image of him kissing another male teacher, said his main worry is the permissive culture around AI use among students. "It just got to the point where students felt comfortable enough creating inappropriate images," he told WIRED. "It's just clear [that] so many kids nowadays just don't understand not only how what they're doing can affect others, but just what happens on the internet and how dangerous it can be."

These details were first reported by WIRED.