Teachers Are Being Targeted With AI Deepfake Porn. Schools Often Have No Idea What to Do.

Key points

• Luis DeSantiago, a substitute teacher in Los Banos, California, found an AI-generated deepfake of himself in lingerie on TikTok on 12 March.
• Wired AI spoke with four teachers who say students used AI tools to create sexualised images or videos of them without consent.
• The student who admitted creating the image received only in-school suspension; the image kept spreading on TikTok and Snapchat.
• The federal Take It Down Act makes it a crime to publish non-consensual intimate images online, including computer-generated ones.
• Employment lawyers say schools have a legal duty to create a harassment-free workplace, but no standard procedure exists for doing it.

Luis DeSantiago was mid-shift at a coffee shop when his phone started buzzing. A barista colleague had spotted something on social media. Her cousin was asking if the person in the photo was him.

He wasn't worried at first. Inappropriate pictures get removed, he thought. Then he saw it.

"When I finally saw the image, that's when it felt like a punch to the gut," DeSantiago told Wired AI. Someone had taken a mirror selfie he once posted and, using AI, swapped his work uniform for lingerie, posing him suggestively. A mundane photo became something entirely different.

DeSantiago is a substitute teacher in Los Banos, California. What followed was months of back-and-forth with school administrators and police across two separate schools.

What exactly happened?

DeSantiago traced the image to a student from the middle school where he regularly worked and reported it to the assistant principal. That same evening he found a second TikTok account impersonating him, using his slightly misspelled name and his own photo as the profile picture.

One student admitted to making the image and received in-school suspension. It spread anyway, appearing on Snapchat and later turning up at the high school DeSantiago transferred to. During one class, a student AirDropped (wirelessly sent to his phone) a copy of the same fake image.

"If these students aren't afraid of generating and posting these images of me," DeSantiago wrote to the principal, "I am concerned of what they may be circulating privately through text messages and group chats. Keep in mind this could include other students as well."

As of publication, DeSantiago said he does not feel safe returning to the district.

Is this just one school?

No. Wired AI spoke with three additional teachers facing the same problem. One mid-twenties middle school teacher described a TikTok account that used what appeared to be an AI-generated video of her face, mouth moving unnaturally, with a voice that wasn't hers, discussing sexual acts. Students reported it and the account came down quickly. The same student then escalated to in-person harassment, including threatening language directed at her, and apparently AI-generated photos of the assistant principal posted to TikTok.

In a separate case, older public photos of a teacher in her sixties were manipulated to show her committing sex acts, then shared inside a private Snapchat group.

This isn't a pattern AI2Day is seeing for the first time. Our August report on a Pennsylvania school's AI nude lawsuit showed how differently institutions respond once lawyers get involved, and how rarely victims get straight answers from administrators.

What does the law actually say?

The rules are clearer than school policy, at least on paper. The Take It Down Act makes publishing non-consensual intimate images online a federal crime, covering computer-generated material as well as real photographs. Retired employment advocacy lawyer Donna Ballman told Wired AI that a student creating and sharing sexual images of a teacher is "a clear case of sexual harassment in the workplace," and that schools carry a legal obligation under federal anti-discrimination law to address it.

The catch, Ballman says, is that there is "no blueprint." Schools aren't even required to tell a victimised teacher how a student was disciplined. They just have to make the environment safe again. Many have struggled with that part.

Snap, the company behind Snapchat, says it prohibits sharing AI-generated content to harass or humiliate others and has reporting processes in place. TikTok did not comment.

Common questions

Can a teacher report this content directly to the platform?

Yes. Both TikTok and Snapchat have in-app reporting tools for sexual or harassing content. Reporting directly, rather than waiting on the school, is often faster. In one case described above, students reported the account themselves and it came down the same day.

What should a teacher do if this happens to them?

Take screenshots before reporting anything, because content disappears fast. Report to the platform first, then the school principal, then local police. An employment or harassment lawyer can tell you exactly what your school is legally required to do on your behalf.