For Luis DeSantiago, a substitute teacher in Los Banos, California, it started with a few text messages. On March 12, while working his other part-time job at a coffee shop, his phone lit up. A fellow barista said there was an AI photo circulating on social media, and her cousin wanted to know whether it was DeSantiago.

At first he was not worried; he figured such photos violated platform guidelines and were removed quickly. "When I finally saw the image, that's when it felt like a punch to the gut," he tells Wired. Parts of it resembled a mirror selfie he took at a job in college — but with lingerie in place of his work uniform and a suggestive pose in place of his own.

Wired spoke with three other teachers who allege their students made sexualized photos and videos of them, likely using AI. The incidents were not merely distressing; they changed how these teachers view their work and their students.

A problem that follows you between schools

One account sharing the image used a real name in its profile: a student he knew from the local middle school where he regularly filled in. From who followed that account, he suspected two others. He was scheduled to work at that very school the next day.

He reported it to the assistant principal, who assured him the school would "take care of it." That evening, searching his own name, he found a different student had created an account impersonating him. The following weeks were spent going back and forth with administrators, parents and even the police.

The line he wrote to the principal captures the real scope: "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. Keep in mind this could include other students as well."

One student who admitted creating the image received in-school suspension. But the image kept proliferating and other students began posting it. When DeSantiago moved to the high school, the problem followed: during one class the same image was AirDropped to him and then quickly revoked. He could tell it was circulating among the class. He does not want to return to the district and says he does not feel safe doing so.

What the law says

Disseminating fake nude images of nonconsenting adults can constitute cyberstalking and violate the federal Take It Down Act, which criminalizes publishing nonconsensual intimate depictions — authentic or computer-generated — online.

Donna Ballman, a retired employment advocacy lawyer, lays out the picture:

  • What it is — a student creating and sharing sexual images of a teacher is a "clear case" of workplace sexual harassment.
  • The employer's duty — federal antidiscrimination law requires a workplace free of harassment; in a school that could mean disciplining the student or moving them to another classroom.
  • The gap — there is "no blueprint" for how schools must respond. Administrators need not even tell a victimized teacher how a student was disciplined.

In most accounts shared with Wired, teachers did not report the content to the platforms. Snap spokesperson Monique Bellamy pointed to policies prohibiting AI-generated or manipulated content used to humiliate or sexually harass. TikTok did not comment before publication.

Why it matters

A middle school teacher in her mid-twenties says she has seen so much AI content used to harass teachers that she is bracing for the next wave. She describes students taking public photos of a teacher in her sixties, manipulating them into sex acts, and sharing them in a group chat.

On the impersonation account made of her, the face had the characteristic smoothness of AI-generated content, the mouth moved unnaturally while speaking, and the voice did not match her own. Even so: "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."

That last sentence carries the heart of it. The technical imperfection of an image does not stop viewers from believing it. For a teacher, repairing a reputation moves far more slowly than removing a file.