Rep. Joe Morelle, D.-N.Y., appeared with a New Jersey high school victim of nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes to discuss a bill stalled in the House.

  • Infiltrated_ad8271@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    If (as it seems) the point is not impersonation but damage to the person’s honor/image, where exactly is the line?

    If realism is the determining factor, what about a hyperrealistic human work? And if it is under human interpretation how realistic it should be, could a sketch be included?

  • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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    8 months ago

    I really wonder whether this is the right move.

    This girl, and many others, are victims and I don’t want to diminish that, but I for better or worse I just don’t see how legislation can resolve this.

    Surely deepfakes will be just different enough to the subject to create reasonable doubt that it depicts the subject.

    I wonder whether, as deep fakes become commonplace, people might be more willing to just ignore it like any other form of trolling.

    • galoisghost@aussie.zone
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      8 months ago

      It’s not trolling it’s bullying. You need to think beyond this being about “porn”. This is a reputational attack that makes the victim more likely to be further victimised via date rape, stalking, murder. These things already happen based on rumours, deepfakes images/videos will only make it worse. The other problem is that it’s almost impossible to erase once it’s on the internet, so the victim will likely never be free of the trauma or danger as the images/videos resurface.

      • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 months ago

        Trolling / bullying is just semantics, which I don’t think will help us very much.

        I think the heightened risk of other crimes is… dubious. Is that conjecture?

        Your position seems to be framed in the reality of several years ago, where if you saw a compromising video of someone it was likely real, while in 2024 the opposite is true.

        Were headed towards a reality where someone can say “assistant, show me a deepfake of a fictitious person who looks a bit like that waitress at the Cafe getting double teamed by two black guys”. I don’t claim to know all the ethical considerations, but I do think that changing social norms are part of the picture.

        I don’t have any authority to assert when anyone else should feel victimised. All I know is that in my own personal case, a few years ago I would’ve felt absolutely humiliated if someone saw a compromising video of me, but with the advent of deep fakes I just wouldn’t care very much. If someone claimed to have seen it I would ask them why they were watching it, and why in the world they would want to tell me about their proclivities.

    • Overzeetop@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      I think it doesn’t go far enough. Straight up, no one should be permitted to create or transmit the likeness of anyone [prior to, say, 20 years following their death] without their explicit, written permission. Make the fine $1,000,000 or 10% of the offender’s net worth, whichever is greater; same penalty and corporate revocation for any corporation involved. Everyone involved from the prompt writer to the work-for-hire people should be liable for the full penalty. I can’t think of a valid, non-entertainment (parody/humor), reason for non-consensual impersonation - and using it for humor or parody is a slippery slope to propaganda weaponization. There is no baby in this tub of bathwater.

      • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 months ago

        I’m not sure this is practically possible.

        A $1m penalty is more or less instant bankruptcy for 99% of the population. It’s probably not much of a deterrent for, say an 18 year old. In my jurisdiction I don’t think there are criminal penalties higher than a few thousand dollaridoos. It doesn’t matter whether you think this act is so aggregious that it deserves a penalty 1000 time higher than any other, my point is that it would be unenforceable ineffective.

        Secondly, how do you determine whether an image is someone’s likeness? Create any random image and surely it will look like someone, but that doesn’t mean that creating that image violates that someone.

      • TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        Yeah, just like the FBI warnings on VHS tapes about massive fines and jail time stopped us from copying them in the 80s and 90s…

    • flipht@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      I think you’re right if the goal is to stop them all together.

      But what we can do is stop people from sending them around and saying that it’s true/actually the person.

      Once they’ve turned it from a art project into a weapon, it should have similar consequences to “revenge porn.”

      • HubertManne@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        I would think this would be covered by libel, slander, defamation type laws. The crime is basically lying about a persons actions and character.

    • AlteredStateBlob@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      My dude there are people out there thinking they’re in a relationship with Johnny fucking Depp because some Nigerian scammer sent them five badly photoshopped pictures. Step out of your bubble, maybe. This shit isn’t easy to spot for the vaaaaaast majority of people and why would this lie with the victim to sort of clear their name or hope that idiots realize it’s fake?

      Especially with and around teenagers who can barely think further than their next meal?

      Good lord.

      • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 months ago

        WDYM “step out of your bubble”?

        It’s not a question of being able to detect whether or not a video is fake. When deepfakes become so prevalent that everyone’s grandma understands that they’re prevalent, it won’t matter whether you can identify the video as fake.

    • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      I hope it won’t overregulate technology itself but instead would be ruled by already existing means about defaming people and taking photoes without their consent, sharing them. Plus, if she’s a teen, it’s a production of CSAM. This person had an illegal intent, just used a new tool not unlike others, just more efficient.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    8 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    A teenage victim of nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes joined Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., on Tuesday to advocate for a bipartisan bill that would criminalize sharing such material at the federal level.

    In addition to criminalizing the nonconsensual sharing of sexually explicit deepfakes, the measure would also create a right of private action for victims to be able to sue creators and distributors of the material while remaining anonymous.

    Mani said her school administration told her on Oct. 20 that male classmates had created and shared sexually explicit deepfakes of her and more than 30 other girls.

    After he heard about what happened at Mani’s high school, which is in his hometown, Rep. Tom Kean, R.-N.J., became the first Republican co-sponsor of Morelle’s bill.

    The lack of legislative movement around deepfakes has raised concerns about the technology’s potential to disrupt the 2024 election cycle.

    A legal expert who specializes in nonconsensual intimate imagery, Mary Anne Franks, who Morelle said helped inform the bill, said deepfakes have already targeted female politicians.


    The original article contains 457 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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    8 months ago

    This is just the tip of the iceberg of the threat AI poses to human social structures. We have yet to appreciate the gravity of what these new technologies enable. It’s incredibly dangerous yet equally naive to think that AI-generated porn laws will keep us safe.

    Firstly, the cat’s out of the bag. We can ban the technology or its misuse all we like, but can we really practically stop people from computing mathematical functions? Legal or not, generative AI can and will be used to generate content that hurts people. We need better planning for identifying, authenticating, and responding when this misuse happens.

    Secondly, we have an already huge, huge problem with fake news and disinformation. What is such a law for the special case of AI porn based on a real person going to do for actually addressing our inability to address harmful generated content?

    It’s a shame, but it strikes me as more feel-good than actually doing something effective.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      A challenge is that generally the same technology to detect ai content can be used to improve it. It’s gonna be an arms race

    • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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      8 months ago

      It’s like how DRM only hurts people who purchase content legally.

      It’s been very illegal to pirate games for decades, and still pirated content is quite common in the wild. What’s banning it (defamation) harder going to practically achieve?

      • trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.com
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        8 months ago

        Literally nothing, but morons will pretend otherwise in order to waste money and time because they can’t think of any other way to engage the problem.

    • Laticauda@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      How? How will this only effect people who follow laws? If you aren’t making ai porn of real underage girls how would this affect you, a law abiding citizen?

  • trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.com
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    8 months ago

    There are already laws against creating false content about people, so adding more laws isn’t going to make the previous laws more or less valid and it’s only going to waste time and money.

    Of course it’s being pushed by a “teen” since this teen clearly doesn’t have any understanding of the issues at hand, the technology at hand nor the laws that already exist to help them with this issue.

    It was up to the adults around this teen to help her navigate the issue and instead the incompetent pieces of worthless shit choose to push a new bill against AI rather than use the current legal framework that exists to actually help this girl.

    Anything to abuse a child or teens situation for their political gain. Worthless trash.

  • Monkey With A Shell@lemmy.socdojo.com
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    8 months ago

    Just wait until them tech savvy folks in Congress try to understand the difference between ‘deepfakes’ in the sense of pasting a new face on existing footage and whole cloth generative AI creating the entire scene, and then someone tells them that the latter is derived from multiple existing media sources. Gonna be some smoke pouring out of their ears like in the cartoons trying to slice up all the specifics.

  • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Think of the children being used to push an agenda that helps the very wealthy? Well I’ll be, what a totally new and not at all predictable move.

    Ban all ai that aren’t owned by rich people, make open source impossible, restrict everything that might allow regular people to compete with the corporations - only then will you children be safe!

    • LWD@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Can you point to something specific in the law that you have a contention with?

    • unalivejoy@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      You kind of have to be rich in order to run these image generation AIs. The RTX 4090 TI isn’t cheap.

    • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I’m as suspicious of “think of the children” stuff as anyone here but I don’t see how we are fighting for the rights of the people by defending non-consensual deepfake porn impersonation, of children or anyone.

      If someone makes deepfake porn of my little cousin or Emma Watson, there’s no scenario where this isn’t a shitty thing to do to a person, and I don’t see how the masses are being oppressed by this being banned. What, do we need to deepfake Joe Biden getting it on to protest against the government?

      Not only the harassment of being subjected to something like this seems horrible, it’s reasonable to say that people ought to have rights over their own likeness, no? It’s not even a matter of journalistic interest because it’s something completely made-up.

      • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        We’re not talking about whether we should make fakes. We’re talking about whether people who do, should be prosecuted - IE physically overpowered by police officers, restrained with handcuffs, and locked up in a prison cell. Some empathy?

        If some classmate of your little cousin makes a fake, should the police come and drag them out of school and throw them in prison? You think that would help?

        Realistically, it’s as likely to happen as prosecution of kids who “get into fights” for assault. Kids tell mean lies about each other but that is not resolved in civil suits over defamation. Even between adults, that’s not the usual thing.

        Civil suits under this bill would be mainly targeted against internet services, because they have the money. And it would largely be used over celebrity fakes. That’s the overwhelming part of fakes out there and they have the money to splurge on suing people who can’t pay. It would be wealthy, powerful people using it against horny teens.

        Also, this bill is so ripe for industrial abuse. Insert a risqué scene in a movie, and suddenly “pirates” can be prosecuted under this.

        • wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one
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          8 months ago

          If my little cousin makes AI child porn, of anyone at all let alone a classmate he knows physically in real life, I dont think he should be allowed to kick his feet and go about his day.

          Like… Making kiddie porn of your classmates is not excusable because youre a horny teen. Sorry, bud, its fucking not

          • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            If two 14-year-olds get it on, they should both be prosecuted for child abuse? That is what you are actually saying?

            • wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one
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              8 months ago

              You can only fuck by creating AI porn of the person you are trying to have sex with against their will? Are you a robot?

              The people who think creating non consentual AI child porn is equivalent to sex need to spend time outside

  • hydration9806@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    I feel we are in need of a societal shift here, just like another commenter said about the printing press. When that first came out, the pushback was from the worry that the words would be attributed to someone who never said them (reverse plaigerism). The societal adjustment to this was the universal doubt that anyone said that thing without proof.

    For generative AI, when it becomes widespread, photos will be generateable for literally everyone, not just minors but every person with photos online. It will be a societal shift; images will be assumed to be AI generated, making any guilt or shame about a nude photo existing obselete.

    Just a matter of time so may as well start now!

  • Blaidd@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Creating fake child porn of real people using things like Photoshop is already illegal in the US, I don’t see why new laws are required?

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    8 months ago

    FOSTA is still in effect and still causing harm to sex workers while actually protecting human traffickers from investigation (leaving victims stuck as captive labor / sex slaves for longer). And it’d still regarded by our federal legislators as a win, since they don’t know any better and can still spin it as a win.

    I don’t believe our legislators can actually write a bill that won’t be used by the federal Department of Justice merely to funnel kids for the sake of filling prison cells with warm bodies.

    We’ve already seen DoJ’s unnuanced approach to teen sexting which convicts teens engaging in normal romantic intercourse as professional producers of CSAM.

    Its just more fuel for the US prison industrial complex. It is going to heavily affect impoverished kids caught in the crossfire while kids in richer families will get the Brock Turner treatment.

    This bill is wholly for political points and has nothing to do with serving the public or addressing disruption due to new technology.

    Until we reform or even abolish the law enforcement state, anything we criminalize will be repurposed to target poor and minorities and lock them up in unconscionable conditions.