this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 9 months ago (5 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 months ago (31 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

You do have a point about the excesses of police work, but if you want to talk about empathy you should also consider the position of the kid who is harassed and traumatized over something they didn't even have any say over. There is some discussion to be had over what degree of punishment ought to be appropriate, and the need to limit police brutality, well beyond this particular matter.

But as far as demanding that every such work is taken down, and giving vulnerable people the means to demand so without exposing themselves further, it is perfectly reasonable.

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.

Except that in the case of deepfake porn it's not a matter of fuzzy two-sided conflicts. One side is creating the whole problem, and one side is just the victim of it despite not being involved in any way. That's the whole point of deepfake. The most that lies might play into it is in finding out that the porn is real, and in such case there is even more reason to take it down.

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.

Gotta say I have a hard time feeling sorry for the people who can't be satisfied by the frankly immense amount of porn we have and decided that they absolutely must have porn from that one specific person who never consented to it. Maybe they are wealthy and powerful, sure. Does that mean it's a free pass to fabricate deepfake porn with their likenesses? I don't think so. Nobody is owed that. As much as you insist that it will be used by the powerful against the poor masses, it still seems to me that whatever regular dude decides to do it is crossing serious boundaries. This is not brave freedom fighter, it's just an asshole.

I think most likely what will happen is that these internet services will just take those down. As they should.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)
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[–] [email protected] 58 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

Well those laws clearly don't work. So we should make new laws! Ones that DEFINITELY WILL work! And if they don't, well I guess we just need more laws until we find ones that do.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

Since we need a rule explicitly for AI related cases, even though it's already covered by others, lets ensure that we also make a 100 page law for if the material is explicitly made in Photoshop, and also another 80 pages if it was made in Gimp. If you use MS Paint to do it, we need a special 200 page law that makes the punishment even harsher, because damn you got skillz and need to be punished more.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

This is not at all about protecting children. That's just manipulation. In truth, kids are more likely to prosecuted than protected by this bill.

There are already laws that could be used against teen bullies but it's rarely done. (IMHO it would create more harm than good, anyway.)

This is part of an effort to turn the likenesses of people into intellectual property. Basically, it is about more money for the rich and famous.

This bill would even apply to anyone who shares a movie with a sex scene in it. It's enough that the "depiction" is "realistic" and "created or altered using digital manipulation". Pretty much any photo nowadays, and certainly any movie, can be said to "altered using digital manipulation". There's no mention of age, deception, AI, or anything that the PR bullshit suggests.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Regulatory capture. OpenAI wants to kick down the ladder

[–] [email protected] 41 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Just tell them the 2nd amendment guaranteed your rights to Gaussian Splatting.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago (17 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

That's a major assumption. Do people really think a school board will really consider that when a student creates a fake Only Fans of a teacher? A random University or Company doesn't even give reason for denying an application when they see any form of online nudity? People are lazy as fuck and will just move on to the next candidate or let someone go to save their own image rather than that off the victim.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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."

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

I don't know how strong the laws are on the topic but I feel this falls under harassment or libel. In most cases this will cause emotional distress and harm to a person's reputation. If you're trying to show off your AI skills you can use a subject that isn't real or depict a real person wearing clothes. This is clearly an attack in my mind.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

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 this special case of AI porn going to do for our inability to address harmful content?

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

People said the same thing when, after the printing press, there was rampant plagiarism and reverse-plagiarism (attributing words to someone who never said them).

After a period of epistemic chaos, the result was several decades of chartered monopoly and government censorship to get it under control.

I hope we won't need heavy-handed regulation this time around. But that will only happen if we learn from history. We need to get this under control now, while we have the chance to start a framework for protecting our fellow human beings from harm. Complaining that it's hard is not an excuse for doing nothing.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (16 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

If the laws on the books aren't being enforced by the local executive branch because they don't understand the technology or terminology and see where it applies the re-writing the law so its more clear what the crime was and how the law can be enforced is absolutely an option.

The article states that there is no federal law governing the use and abuse of non-consensual deepfakes. The proposed bill also offers additional protections for victims. Putting that on the books isn't a waste time or money. If the patchwork of local laws were working then this young woman wouldn't be asking her congressperson of change.

So I respectfully disagree with your take that it is political grandstanding and unnecessary.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (6 children)

More laws that will only affect people who follow laws

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (6 children)

I mean, they do usually effect the people that break them and go to prison too.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Isn't that... all laws?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Might as well not make any laws then.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I would have thought that deepfakes are defamation per se. The push to criminalize this is quite the break with American first amendment traditions.

If I understand correctly, this would put any image hoster, including Lemmy, in hot water because 230 immunity is only for civil suits and not federal criminal prosecution.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (5 children)

the text of the bill exempts service providers from any liabilities as long as they make a good faith attempt to remove it as soon as they are aware of its existence. So if someone makes AI generated revenge porn on your instance as long as you take it down when notified, you want be in trouble.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

There is no world where a law aimed at this type of thing will ever be used for its intended purpose.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 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!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

A sketch would probably not convince anyone that the subject consensually participated in sex acts that never occurred.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Good question. The bill doesn't define realistic. There's no condition that it should fool anyone.

This definitely goes beyond AI and includes photoshops, 3d renders and any other digital art. I think it would also include hand drawn images, once they are digitized, EG by photographing them on a phone. Always provided that the depictions are in some way "realistic".

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

How different is photoshopped fakes from AI fakes? Are we going to try to bad that too?

ETA: *ban that too. Thx phone kb.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (3 children)

What does the method matter? If the result is an artifact that is convincing enough for the average person to believe that the subject knowingly posed for sex acts that never occurred, the personal experience and social stigma is traumatizing no matter how it was made.

As the sociologist Brooke Harrington puts it, if there was an E = mc^2^ of social science, it would be SD > PD, “social death is more frightening than physical death.”

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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!

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