Julie is a primary school robotics and coding teacher who recently uploaded a TikTok asking netizens for help in teaching her grade 4s an important lesson…
South Africa (27 March 2026) – Julie is a local teacher currently working through a unit about online safety and security with her youngest learners. So she did what any brilliant teacher would do, and she made a TikTok!
Rather than explaining how quickly things spread online (which is a bit abstract when you’re nine years old), Julie uploaded a video to TikTok and asked strangers from around the world to help her prove the point.
“I just want to show my Grade 4s how quickly something can spread on social media. If you can, would you mind commenting where you are in the world, and if you know me, or you don’t know me.”
@raising.the.vockys Please help me show my Grade 4 learners how quickly something can spread on Social Media #fyp #onlineawareness #safetyfirst ♬ original sound – raising.the.vockys
And the internet, being the internet, was more than happy to play along.
Comments began rolling in from across South Africa, and then beyond our borders. In its three days of spreading online, the video has already reached over 4800 people with commenters in South Africa, Portugal, Mauritius, Namibia, Australia, the Netherlands, Vietnam, and Scotland.
And now, there’s an article. This one.
What started as a TikTok video – with Julie’s request limited to her comments section – has now become a headline. A story picked up by a real publication (hi!), read by people Julie has never met, in places she didn’t ask about. And who knows how many other articles, shares, or conversations the same video might spark from here?
Publications and platforms pick up stories from social media all the time. A TikTok becomes a trending topic, a school project becomes a global feel-good story, and a teacher’s experiment becomes a news article. Once something is shared online, it gains a life of its own.
Understanding how things spread on social media is one of the most important things a young person can know before they start posting, sharing, or even just commenting. What goes online stays online. Even a deleted post can be screenshotted, shared, or picked up somewhere else entirely – like, say, a news article.
And…sharing has consequences, both good and bad. Julie’s TikTok is an example of the good kind. There’s the bad, too. That’s why privacy is worth protecting, and knowing how far a post can travel helps kids understand why sharing personal information, even in the comments of something fun, is something to think carefully about.
Equipping children with digital literacy early doesn’t make them scared of the internet; it makes them smarter about it. And smarter is always a good thing!
So, Julie. From everyone who saw your TikTok, shared your story, or simply dropped their location in the comments to help a classroom of nine-year-olds understand the world they’re growing up in – thank you. We hope this helps!
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