A 13-year-old girl in Louisiana was expelled for attacking a boy on a school bus after AI-generated nude images of her and her friends were shared on social media. The incident highlights the growing challenge schools face in addressing cyberbullying involving deepfake technology.
The girl and her friends first reported the images to a guidance counsellor and a sheriff's deputy at Sixth Ward Middle School in Thibodaux, but adults could not find them as they were shared on Snapchat, which deletes messages quickly. The principal doubted the images existed.
Frustrated, the girl attacked a boy on the bus and was expelled for over 10 weeks, sent to an alternative school. The boy she suspected of creating the images faced no school discipline, according to her attorneys. However, the sheriff's department charged two boys accused of sharing the explicit images.
The school district said it followed protocols, but experts note schools are often unprepared for AI-driven harassment. The district's AI guidance focused on academics, not cyberbullying, and its training on the issue was from 2018.
