First-Known TikTok Mob Attack Led by Middle Schoolers Tormenting Teachers
Freeman writes:
A bunch of eighth graders in a "wealthy Philadelphia suburb" recently targeted teachers with an extreme online harassment campaign that The New York Times reported was "the first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States."
According to The Times, the Great Valley Middle School students created at least 22 fake accounts impersonating about 20 teachers in offensive ways. The fake accounts portrayed long-time, dedicated teachers sharing "pedophilia innuendo, racist memes," and homophobic posts, as well as posts fabricating "sexual hookups among teachers."
[...] Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association-which is the largest US teachers' union-told The Times that teachers have never dealt with such harassment on this scale. Typically, The Times reported, students would target a single educator at a time. Pringle said teachers risk online harassment being increasingly normalized. That "could push educators to question" leaving the profession, Pringle said, at a time when the US Department of Education is already combating a teacher shortage.
[...] TikTok's community guidelines ban impersonation, except for "parody or fan-based" accounts. The platform provides paths within the app and on its website to report impersonation, requiring teachers to show ID to request a takedown.
TikTok's enforcement so far seems uneven. Some teachers told The Times that they reported fake accounts and never heard back from TikTok. Others said they were not comfortable sharing an ID with TikTok for privacy reasons and therefore never reported the fake accounts.
[...] The only accounts that seemed to be promptly removed were four fake accounts flagged by a reporter that TikTok confirmed were deleted. TikTok found that the majority of other accounts flagged were unavailable.
[...] Reporting the behavior to TikTok could result in the most serious consequences for fans of TikTok: a ban that could trigger bans on all their other TikTok accounts. But that only happens in "the case of severe violations of our rules or engagement in circumvention behavior," TikTok's community guidelines said. That suggests that the middle schoolers would have to continually create new accounts to evade bans before TikTok may cut off their access to the platform.
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