AI Deepfake Sexual Abuse of Teachers: 'It Makes You Question Everything'

For Luis DeSantiago, a substitute teacher in Los Banos, California, what became a months-long nightmare began with just a handful of text messages. On March 12, while working his second part-time shift at a local coffee shop, his phone lit up with a message from a coworker. A fellow barista told him an AI-generated photo was circulating on local social media, and her cousin wanted to confirm if the man in the image was DeSantiago.

At first, DeSantiago felt no alarm. He assumed inappropriate content would violate TikTok’s community guidelines and be removed quickly. “When I finally saw the image, that’s when it felt like a punch to the gut,” DeSantiago told WIRED. The deepfake was built from a mirror selfie he’d taken years earlier while working a college job—he recognized the background immediately. But instead of his work uniform, the AI edited him into lingerie, and altered his casual standing pose into a sexually suggestive one.

That initial text kicked off a months-long saga that impacted two local schools, involving students and district leadership. And DeSantiago is far from the only educator targeted by this form of abuse. WIRED spoke with three other teachers who allege their own students created nonconsensual sexualized AI photos and videos of them. All described the incidents as deeply distressing and disillusioning, and in many cases, the experience forced them to completely rethink their work and their relationships with students.

“This Could Include Other Students”

After receiving the first texts, DeSantiago began tracing who was behind the fake image. One TikTok account that shared the photo used the student’s real name on their profile—it was a student he’d subbed for regularly at the local middle school. Based on account interactions, follower lists, and his familiarity with local student friend groups, DeSantiago suspected two other students were also involved.

He was scheduled to work at that same middle school the next day, and reported the incident to the assistant principal, who assured him the school would “take care of it.” That evening, DeSantiago searched his name on TikTok to locate the image, and made a more upsetting discovery: a separate student had created an entire impersonation account using a slightly misspelled version of his name, with the deepfake as the profile picture.

Over the following weeks, DeSantiago shuttled between meetings with administrators, the involved students’ parents, and local police. “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,” DeSantiago wrote to the principal. “Keep in mind this could include other students as well.”

One student admitted to creating the original image, and received an in-school suspension as discipline. DeSantiago later learned the image was also shared widely on Snapchat. But the fake never stopped spreading: more students continued to post it, and DeSantiago received dozens of crude sexual comments directly on his personal TikTok account.

He told administrators he would not accept any more assignments at the middle school “until this matter is fully addressed.” The district did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment. DeSantiago took a substitute opening at the local high school, but the abuse followed him. During one class, he received an AirDrop of the same AI image before the sender quickly revoked it. It was clear the image was already circulating among the class.

While the high school principal launched an “immediate investigation” and offered counseling support, DeSantiago says he will almost certainly not return to substitute teaching in the district this year. At least for now, he told WIRED, he does not feel safe working there.

“It Makes You Question Everything”

When nonconsensual fake intimate images of adults are disseminated online, the act can qualify as cyberstalking and violate the U.S. federal Take It Down Act, which criminalizes publishing nonconsensual intimate visual content—both real and AI-generated—online. In most of the cases WIRED reviewed, teachers did not directly report the fake content to the platforms where it was posted.

Snap spokesperson Monique Bellamy shared the company’s policies on harassment and sexual content, which prohibit sharing AI-generated or manipulated content to humiliate or sexually harass others. She told WIRED the company has established reporting processes for this type of content, and continues to develop new features and tools to support the safety, privacy, and well-being of its community. TikTok did not provide comment before publication.

Donna Ballman, a retired employment advocacy lawyer, told WIRED that a student creating and sharing sexual deepfakes of a teacher is a clear case of workplace sexual harassment. Under federal anti-discrimination law, Ballman explained, employers have a legal obligation to maintain a work environment free of sexual harassment. For schools, this can mean disciplining the offending student or reassigning them to another classroom.

However, Ballman added, there is no existing standard blueprint for how schools should respond to these new AI-fueled incidents. Administrators are not even required to share details of student discipline with the targeted teacher. “They just have to make and create a safe environment for the victim,” Ballman said.

A 20-something middle school teacher, who requested anonymity because she did not have district permission to speak publicly about her experience, told WIRED she has already seen so much AI deepfake harassment of teachers that she is bracing for the next incident. Last year, she said, students pulled public photos of a teacher in her 60s, manipulated them to show her committing sexual acts, and shared the fakes in a private Snapchat group chat.

A few months ago, she learned from a student that there was a TikTok account impersonating her. It was clearly AI-generated: her face had the signature unnatural smoothness of AI output, her mouth moved incorrectly while speaking, and the voice did not match her own. Some videos showed her doing absurd stunts like skydiving or backflips, while others depicted her describing sexual acts she supposedly performed and enjoyed.

She reported the account to her principal, who assured her they would “see what we can do.” All day, students came to her to warn her about the account, and many told her they already knew who created it: a classmate with a documented history of behavioral issues. “I know a lot of the kids that reported it to me genuinely believed that was my account, and that I was saying those things,” she told WIRED. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, you guys—that is not me.’”

She asked students to report the account to TikTok, and it was taken down quickly. Still shaken, she brought up the incident at the next monthly teacher meeting, where a male colleague shared that the same student had created an AI-generated fake video of him getting arrested.

In the weeks that followed, the same student targeted her with escalating in-person harassment, “cursing me out, calling me names, telling me to fuck off, calling me a bitch.” When she raised the issue again, she learned the assistant principal was also a target: the student was calling and texting them in the middle of the night and posting AI deepfakes of them to TikTok. The principal removed the student from her class and limited his access to her, but the harassment continued until the student ultimately left the district, and TikTok removed the fake account.

She noted these behavioral issues are not unique to one student. “It's kind of unsurprising that we are dealing with that, because these kids just have a hard time,” she said. “I'm just worried about this happening again.”

Other teachers say their experiences have permanently changed how they connect with students. Alice, who asked to be identified only by her first name, works at a UK college that trains 16- to 19-year-old students in trades like construction. Her role combines administrative work (such as taking attendance) with college counseling, and she meets one-on-one with roughly 150 students a year, taking pride in being a trusted sounding board and mentor for young people.

This winter, college administrators told her a student had reported two videos circulating among his classmates. One was a real clip of her talking to a student, while the second was an AI-manipulated edit of the same footage. In the fake, she was shown stripping off her clothes and dancing in underwear or a bikini.

Alice told WIRED that as a qualified youth worker, a core part of her job is discussing topics students are too embarrassed to bring up to their parents: things like drugs, parties, and safe sex. She had even had several of these open conversations with the student she suspected created the video. When administrators questioned him, he denied involvement and dropped out of the college shortly after. The college did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

“It makes me reflect as well on those conversations, thinking, did he think that he could overstep a line because we were having these discussions?” she said. “It makes you question everything.”

After the incident, the college allowed her to take a few weeks off and launched an education campaign for students about the dangers of creating and distributing deepfakes. But when she returned, the classroom atmosphere felt permanently changed. “I did have a really good rapport with my students—I do have a good rapport with my students,” she said, adding that she still loves her work. “But it's definitely made me a bit more cautious, a bit more vigilant when it comes to folks.”

“It Crosses the Line”

Like DeSantiago, Luke Red, a sixth-grade teacher based in Arizona, says his students circulated an AI-generated deepfake of him in the comments of his public TikTok account. The fake image showed Red kissing another male teacher.

Red reported the student accounts to TikTok—he reported them for being below the platform’s minimum age requirement of 13, rather than for content violations—but says TikTok never removed the accounts. His school immediately launched an investigation and quickly identified the student, who admitted to creating and sharing the image. The student received a three-day suspension, the harshest punishment allowed for a first-time sexual harassment offense under the district’s student handbook. The district did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

Red told WIRED that reflecting on the experience “has kind of sent me into a spiral.” His concerns are not primarily about the harm done to him, he says, but about the casual, permissive culture around unregulated AI use among students that allows this abuse to happen.

“It just got to the point where students felt comfortable enough creating inappropriate images,” Red said. “Obviously when you're making your teachers do sexual things with these images, that's where it crosses the line.” Ultimately, he feels more sympathy for the students than anger toward them. “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,” Red said.