Teachers at Great Valley Middle School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, were reportedly targeted in a "group TikTok attack" in which students created fake TikTok accounts impersonating them. The New York Times was the first outlet to report on the TikTok attack, and described it as "the first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States."
According to the report, students made fake TikTok accounts for more than 20 teachers, and used those fake accounts to share offensive, inappropriate content, making it look as though the teachers shared that content.
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After the New York Times published an article on the TikTok attack, the Great Valley School District shared a statement about it, calling the students' actions "disheartening."
Students at the middle school "created fictitious TikTok profiles that impersonated our Great Valley Middle School staff members," Superintendent Daniel Goffredo said in the statement.
Goffredo added that, "district administrators are working to identify clear and actionable ways that our already established focus on digital citizenship might be strengthened in our curriculum."
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So far, the school has hosted an assembly about social media use and sent letters to students' families about the incident, reported WPVI. Goffredo said the school district is taking this issue "very seriously," but it is "legally limited in what action we can take when students communicate off campus during non-school hours on personal devices."
Some students were "briefly" suspended as a result of the TikTok attack, reported the New York Times.
District officials also met with each teacher and removed the teachers' photos from the school directory, reported WPVI.
According to the report from the New York Times, students used real images of their teachers on the fake TikTok accounts. Some of the content they posted on the fake accounts referenced pedophilia or fictitious hookups between teachers, the outlet reported.
Some students tried to say that the fake accounts were just meant to be a joke. In an email to the New York Times, one student acknowledged that some students took the joke too far.
"It saddens us to know that the students to whom these teachers dedicate their time and talents every day would misuse technology in a way that causes teachers un-deserved stress and emotional hardship," district leaders shared in a statement, reported Fox 29.
The school district noted that district administrators "are also planning how to reestablish a culture of trust and caring district-wide, but especially in our middle school where the behavior of our students has had a profound impact on our staff."
Goffredo also encouraged students' families to talk to them over the summer about responsible social media use.
"What seemingly feels like a joke has deep and long-lasting impacts, not just for the targeted person but for the students themselves," Goffredo said in the statement.
