My brother is like 100x times more popular than me but only because he always wants to be in center of attention, he will do anything just to make people laugh. I'm literal opposite of him but I still make people laugh in different ways that don't get me in trouble.
And to be honest, his School and especially his own class are sensitive idiots. I know he shouldn't had done that but neither should you go straight ahead tell everyone about it and get him in trouble. My school doesn't entirely ban phones, only during class. But you know how people are nowadays, I did use phone a bit sometimes but only if I didn't have anything else to do and I'm already capable of doing whatever teacher is assing us to do. I've taken pictures of someone and uses filter on it, but it's not too serious, often times it's just to make humor for it and we generally don't mock anyone for it. That's it. We're just basically making connections with people.
In Middle School, phones were forbidden to use at all. Which is best in my opinion, focus on whatever you have to do, it's simple. You're not gonna die if you're not gonna use it for 6-8 hours, you have friends man. It's better than just staring at screen.