Teachers quitting over ‘paedo’ slurs on Tiktok

TEACHERS are quitting their jobs because the latest Tiktok craze is falsely labelling them as adulterers and paedophiles, unions have warned.

One Welsh school called the police after a meme of a teacher falsely suggested they were an offender.

Schools also warned that the tech company is so slow to respond to requests to take down the accusations that parents are bringing in pupils’ phones so teachers can conduct their own investigations.

Tiktok’s recommendation algorithms were found to promote hashtags accusing teachers of being paedophiles. The company said it was “proactively” searching for such allegations.

The trend involves pupils posting images or videos of teachers with hashtags, such as #paedo. When users looked at the hashtag, Tiktok recommended they looked at the hashtag #paedoteacher.

The NASUWT union said the trend was prompting teachers to quit . Dr Patrick Roach, its general secretary, said: “If there is any evidence that companies like Tiktok are actively promoting or inciting the abuse of teachers, this is wholly unacceptable and urgent action must be taken by the Government. There is simply no excuse for abuse of teachers whose lives are being ruined as a result of malicious content.”

Tiktok said: “We are crystal clear that hateful behaviour, bullying and harassment have no place on Tiktok. We regret the distress caused to some teachers as a result of abusive content posted to our platform … and we continue to proactively detect and remove violative content and accounts.”