A 13-year-old girl in Louisiana was expelled for more than 10 weeks after she attacked a boy on a school bus, following the circulation of AI-generated nude images of her and her friends. The images, created using artificial intelligence, were shared on social media and became the talk of Sixth Ward Middle School in Thibodaux.
The girl and her friends first reported the images to a school guidance counsellor and a sheriff's deputy, but the adults could not find them because they were shared on Snapchat, which deletes messages after they are viewed. The principal doubted the images existed. When the girl saw a classmate showing one of the images on the bus, she attacked the boy and encouraged others to join her.
She was sent to an alternative school, while the boy she and her friends suspected of creating the images faced no school discipline, according to her attorneys. The sheriff's department later charged two boys accused of sharing the explicit images, but not the girl.
The incident highlights the challenges schools face in addressing AI-generated deepfakes. The Lafourche Parish School District had not updated its cyberbullying training to reflect the threat of AI-generated explicit images, and its AI guidance mainly covered academics. Superintendent Jarod Martin said the district followed all protocols and that a 'one-sided story' had been presented.
The investigation uncovered AI-generated nude images of eight female middle school students and two adults. The girl's father described the images as 'full nudes with her face put on them.' Experts say schools are often unprepared for such digital harm, with victims only becoming visible when they break.
