Police have been called to multiple Victorian schools over a disturbing trend of students posting doctored pornographic images of teachers online.
Students are posting hate-filled TikToks against teachers.
An online forum contains a discussion between Australian teachers expressing frustration and disbelief about the way they are treated by students.
Police have been called into schools and students as young as year seven suspended after fake explicit images of teachers have been shared online.
Students have also posted incriminating classroom videos showing teachers raising their voices while disciplining students.
There has been an escalation of online hatred towards educators.
There is also a rise in hate-filled rants against individual teachers, with thousands viewing negative posts making fun of their appearance or the way they discipline students.
Popular posts have captions such as: “Would you stomp on your English teacher for $5 million dollars?”, “POV: A teacher you hated died” and “POV: your English teacher’s house is on fire.”
The Herald Sun has seen hate pages about teachers from schools such as Warrnambool Secondary College, Brauer College, Wantirna College, Essendon Keilor College and Werribee Secondary College.
Students are sharing hate-filled rants on TikTok about their teachers.
One TikTok with the caption ‘POV: The teacher you hate died’.
One teacher from a private school in Sydney reported that there has been “an increase in students’ misuse of social media, specifically when it comes to posting about our teachers and the school itself”.
“What’s more concerning is that these images are being edited and then posted on TikTok (you can imagine the nature of these edits),” the teacher wrote.
Numerous teachers from Victoria, NSW, Queensland, South Australia and other states say they have been the victim of students posting doctored images of them online.
One said image misuse of teachers by students on social media was “rampant” and there was “no way of escaping it”.
Another noted that they “had a couple of videos made of deep fakes about teachers by students. One was super inappropriate and the school didn’t handle it well. Two staff left because of it.”
Another said: “During the 2020 lockdowns we had some Year 7 boys sharing (badly) edited explicit images with teachers’ heads imposed.”
Another said a head girl from a “prestigious private school” was suspended after editing photos of her teacher in inappropriate pornographic poses.
Cyber cop Susan McLean, a cyber safety expert who provides expert advice to schools around the country, said parents were oblivious to what their children are doing online.
“There must be clear consequences and those doing this should be shown the door,” she said. “Teachers must be prepared to go to police if it’s a criminal matter, or a lawyer if it’s defamation.
“Until kids see consequences, it’s going to continue,” Ms McLean said. “The school has a duty of care to protect teachers,” she said.
The Herald Sun has also seen several TikTok posts where photos of teachers from Warrnambool Secondary College and Brauer College are shown with students mocking them in the comments section.
One post shows a slideshow of Warrnambool Secondary College teachers, with students rating them and writing offensive comments.
On another account, students from Brauer College also make fun of students and teachers by playing a cruel ‘guess who’ game.
Students from Wantirna College have also made several shocking posts, with teachers’ faces being transformed into apes.
One student wrote: “Fits so perfectly”, while another commented: “Make more videos of teachers”.
There are also clips from classrooms at Essendon Keilor College showing students laughing and singing while teachers express frustration at their behaviour.
A hate page at Werribee Secondary College names individual teachers, accusing them of harsh punishments over uniform violations, unfair assessments and “winning an argument against a kid with autism”.
A Department of Education spokesman said any form of bullying or harassment, whether in person or online, would not be tolerated in Victorian schools, which should be safe places to both learn and work.
“Victorian schools have zero tolerance for bullying or other inappropriate behaviour and take strong action against those found to be doing the wrong thing,” he said.
“Social media providers have a critical role to play in preventing the publication of content that promotes bullying – and we are continuing to raise this issue with the platforms directly.”
The eSafety Commissioner has been contacted for comment.