Adelaide schools rocked by vile TikTok trend as Education Minister blames TikTok
The SA Government has taken aim at the social media platform responsible as more schools are embroiled in a nasty social media trend shaming young teens.
North & North East
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The Education Department has labelled disturbing clips from Salisbury High School showing female students’ bodies being rated for their appearance on TikTok as “inappropriate”.
Education Minister Blair Boyer also called on the social media giant to take responsibility and demanded they be removed.
A department spokeswoman said the content was “immediately reported” and senior school figures provided support to affected students.
“Salisbury High School … is communicating with the school community about the issue,” she said.
“The principal and leadership team is providing ongoing support to students.”
Mr Boyer earlier told 5AA the social media platform needed to “bear responsibility” for the content being shared.
“It’s pretty hard to make these giant social media companies take responsibility for this stuff,” he said.
“We’ve asked TikTok, demanded might be the word, to take them down.
“These giant … platforms just don’t seem to care to be perfectly honest.”
The department revealed there had been a 13 per cent increase in cyberbullying reports in state schools.
To week eight of term two last year there had been 116 incidents recorded resulting in take home, suspension, exclusion or expulsion.
That number climbed to 132 at the same time in 2022.
The videos, titled “cute girls and there (sic) bodies” and “girls vs there (sic) bodies”, were posted in April but other “guess who” and “hottest guys” videos circulated last month.
At least 17 female students had their photos posted on the accounts.
Another video, titled “two girls (student name) could pull”, was posted by one of the accounts, which uses the school logo and name for its profile.
Messenger has chosen not to publish the videos.
Several other TikTok videos have been posted about the “hotness” of students at other Adelaide schools, including Adelaide, Parafield Gardens and Salisbury East High School and Brighton Secondary School and Roma Mitchell Secondary College.
The videos come a day after Golden Grove High School was engulfed in controversy as TikTok videos rated female students for their “hotness” and those labelled the “biggest sl**s”.
One mother from the school, whose daughter featured on a “biggest sl**s” list, told Messenger her strong-willed daughter was starting to be worn down by the harassment.
TikTok was contacted for comment.
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