“Imagine a girl waking up and finding an explicit photo or video that looks like her but isn’t her,” Dorota Mani told The Post.
That’s what happened to Mani’s 14-year-old daughter, Francesca, who discovered in October that classmates at Westfield High School, in Union County, New Jersey, had circulated photos that appeared to depict her in the nude.
But the photo is not real. It was generated by a boy in his class using artificial intelligence “deepfake” technology.
All the perpetrators need is to take an innocent photo of Francesca from her social media and use one of dozens of apps or websites, to turn it into a fake nude.
This week, the obscene facility of pornographic “deepfakes” was made public spectacle as nude images of Taylor Swift flooded social media.
A twisted version of the world’s biggest pop star was so ubiquitous that X, formerly Twitter, had to censor searches of his name to stop innocent users seeing the image.
A deeply fake image of Taylor Swift went viral, prompting X before Twitter banned searches of her name. AP Deepfakes can be created with just one picture of the victim. AFP via Getty Images
And a new analysis for the Associated Press reveals that more deepfake content has been posted online this year than in all previous years combined.
The issue was mentioned only once Wednesday on Capitol Hill when senators questioned tech CEOs including Mark Zuckerberg, who runs Facebook and Instagram, Evan Spiegel who heads Snapchat, and Linda Yaccarino of X about child safety for four hours.
But Francesca, her mother said, was one of dozens of victims of fake pornography at her high school alone – suggesting the problem regularly affects millions of American teenage girls.
And there is no federal law preventing the image from being disseminated, as it is not currently categorized as a child abuse image.
Tech CEOs were questioned about fake content on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. AFP via Getty Images
“It was some bored and spoiled teenagers who decided to have fun at the expense of their classmates,” his mother said. “There needs to be accountability, and girls need to know there is accountability.”
The school district said the number affected was “far fewer” than 30 but declined to disclose the exact number.
Mani, 44, thought she was doing everything possible to protect her daughter online but was blindsided by the fake technology being used against her.
“I am an educated and knowledgeable middle-aged woman. I talk to my kids about Snapchat and about TikTok,” he said. “But to be honest with you, I didn’t know that with one click, you could create such a thing.”
Westfield High School in New Jersey is rocked by a fake nudity scandal. Kyle Mazza/TheNEWS2 via ZUMA Press Wire / SplashNews.com
Mani, a mother of two, learned her daughter was a victim when she was called by the school to tell her, and then contacted by the local police to ask if she and Francesca wanted to file a formal complaint.
But eventually police told Manis and the other victims’ families that they could find no New Jersey or federal law making deepfakes illegal, while schools adopted new rules to expressly make sharing the images a crime.
School supervisor Dr. Raymond González told The Post that Westfield, one of the most affluent towns in New Jersey. not alone in dealing with the problem.
“All school districts are grappling with the challenges and effects of artificial intelligence,” he said.
“The Westfield Public School District has the protection… [we] continue to strengthen our efforts by educating our students and establishing clear guidelines to ensure this new technology is used responsibly.”
Dorota Mani said she had no idea her teenage son could be a target of a deepfake. AP
Now Mani and Francesca have made their plea for action to Congress and other political leaders – including an expected meeting at the White House next week.
“We found that there was no law to protect us from it, no school AI policy, no state law, no federal law,” Mani told The Post. “We were just surprised at how the situation was handled.
“Everyone wants to see us break down and cry on the floor. This is not who we are. Girls should stand up for themselves and not accept being just victims.”
Both called for criminal penalties for the distribution of deepfakes and legal protection for victims.
The mother and daughter have teamed up with state lawmakers in New Jersey to craft a bill that would make sharing fake porn a punishable offense — and could attach jail time to it, too.
The mother and daughter duo have called for laws to protect victims of fake tech. FOX News
The state will join Texas, Virginia and New York, all of which have criminalized fake pornography without consent.
They supported bipartisan legislation in the Senate, led by Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar and Republican Josh Hawley, to make counterfeiting without consent illegal, under the proposed DEFIANCE Act, and a similar effort in the House by Democratic congressman Joe Morelle, who representing Rochester , NY, called the Act to Prevent Internal Tampering of Intimate Images.
“No one—whether celebrities or ordinary Americans—should find themselves featured in AI pornography,” Hawley said. “Innocent people have the right to defend their reputations and hold perpetrators accountable in court.”
At a press conference with Rep. Morelle in Washington, DC, in January, Francesca said: “Just because I’m a teenager doesn’t mean my voice isn’t strong. What happened to me and my classmates was not great, and there was no way I was going to just shrug my shoulders and let it slide.”
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