Commenting on reports of the abuse of teachers in posts on
TikTok, Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of
School and College Leaders, said:
“Over the past couple of weeks, school staff have suffered
disgraceful abuse through messages and imagery posted on the
social media platform TikTok. We do not know how widespread this
is but we have received over 50 reports, and we suspect there are
many more.
“These posts are often defamatory and offensive, and some are
homophobic. Schools tell us that they have asked TikTok to remove
them but TikTok has often failed to act despite these posts
clearly breaching the platform’s community guidelines.
“This material is extremely distressing for the staff who are
targeted, and the young people who are posting it are involved in
behaviour which could lead to them being excluded from school
and, in extreme cases, being the subject of a police
investigation.
“We have written to TikTok to ask it to proactively prevent this
material being posted, to respond immediately to requests to
remove such posts, and to request a meeting about this issue. We
have also spoken to the governments in England, Wales and
Northern Ireland.
“TikTok has replied to us to say it is investigating the issue
and that it is using a combination of technologies and moderation
teams to identify and remove content or accounts that violate its
community guidelines. It says it has acted against a large number
of accounts already. It has also offered to meet with us to
discuss its response in more detail.
“We welcome this action and hope this matter can be resolved
swiftly.
“However, this in our view reinforces the urgent need for
regulation of social media platforms. Schools have had to spend
valuable time endeavouring to have this content removed, and
dealing with the fallout, when they are also having to cope with
coronavirus-related disruption and help children catch up with
lost learning.
“Social media platforms should be legally responsible for
ensuring they have processes in place which prevent offensive and
abusive material from being posted in the first place.”
