Last weekend in this space we focused on the issue of “lunch shaming” — that the practice has no place in our schools.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the topic, “lunch shaming,” which was the focus of an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal’s June 2 edition, was described in that article as “an insidious bullying tactic ‘creeping into school cafeterias across the country.'”

It involves making and sharing unflattering photographs of other students eating.

Julie Jargon, the Journal columnist who wrote the column, wrote that “kids are snapping and sharing photos of other students eating lunch. The shaming tends to fall into two categories: the ugly mouthful and the lonely eater.”

As bad as right-thinking people might consider that practice, the topic on which the Journal focused on June 15 is much worse –much more deplorable and much more in need of stronger remedial action than what currently exists.

But what kind that might be will require much serious thought and probably much more than an “ounce” of courage and commitment.

The topic, as described by the Journal, is what the newspaper referred to as “deepfake nudes.”

“Deepfake nudes transform bullying” was the headline over the front-page article, followed by the message “Parents and schools are struggling to protect victims as AI tools proliferate.”

Those were followed by the article’s two lead — very troubling — paragraphs, as follows:

“AI has made it trivially easy for anyone with a phone to digitally undress people and post the content online. Called explicit deepfakes, these images, and sometimes videos, are unleashing a new form of bullying and harassment among young people.

“Artificial-intelligence ‘nudify’ tools are evolving and multiplying. Laws cracking down on them have lagged behind cases and aren’t always enforced. Schools don’t know how to handle them. Parents are left trying to help their children regain a sense of safety as they try to scrub the images from the internet.”

Is anything like that happening on this area’s public — even parochial — school fronts? If so, even if only as an isolated situation, no one has been talking about it and it is district residents’ right to know, so they can be on guard against it.

But deepfake technology is not new, and for that reason authorities and school officials should be better poised for battling it.

As the Journal pointed out, deepfake technology first came on the scene about 2015, but back then it required hundreds or thousands of photos.

“The people who were vulnerable were famous,” the Journal said. “Now a growing number of nudify apps can virtually remove clothing from a person based on one image. With just 10 seconds of audio, an AI tool can clone a voice.”

The Journal went on to report that more than half of the 557 U.S. teens who took a recent George Mason University survey admitted that they had created at least one image using nudification tools.

In its lengthy report, the Journal focused on some student victims’ decisions to leave school, how a teacher became a victim, the suicide of a victim and the possible long-term implications for young people who decide to opt for the sleazy practice. Yet the article did not focus on any real hope for getting the situation under control — because there might not be one.

Perhaps this country and the rest of this world are merely left with two questions: How has the planet sunk to such a despicable condition and is the bottom of the “cesspool” yet in sight?