The anti-Deepfake porn bill, otherwise known as the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act, passed the U.S. Senate unanimously on Thursday with 100 votes.
Introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) while being sponsored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) from the U.S. House, the bill would essentially allow victims of Deepfake porn to “sue anyone who knowingly creates, receives, or distributes non-consensual, sexually explicit content made with artificial intelligence,” per Gizmodo. Victims will have a 10-year statute of limitations.
“The bill is one of the first to address the damages caused by AI, which is currently a self-regulated industry,” the outlet noted. “It doesn’t allow for criminal prosecution, but hopefully, it’s a first step towards more federal oversight.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she pushed the bill after falling victim to Deepfake porn online, which become a significant problem in recent years.
YIKES: Instagram failed to remove an AI-generated nude deepfake of a real Indian public figure, doing nothing until Meta’s Oversight Board began an inquiry into the case. https://t.co/g0tVEeY2FE
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 25, 2024
“Today marks an important step in the fight to protect survivors of nonconsensual deepfake pornography. Over 90% of all deepfake videos made are nonconsensual sexually explicit images, and women are the targets 9 times out of 10,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement on Thursday.
“The DEFIANCE Act would guarantee federal protections for survivors of nonconsensual deepfake pornography for the first time, granting the right to take civil action against individuals who knowingly produce, distribute, or receive nonconsensual sexually-explicit digital forgeries,” she added.
Actress Scarlett Johansson, who herself has been subject to the Deepfake porn phenomenon, candidly admitted in a 2019 interview the tech will be difficult to regulate.
“I think it’s a useless pursuit, legally, mostly because the internet is a vast wormhole of darkness that eats itself,” said Johansson. “There are far more disturbing things on the dark web than this, sadly. I think it’s up to an individual to fight for their own right to the their image, claim damages, etc.”
Johansson also expressed concern with how it will affect women who have absolutely no public capital to protect their image.
“It’s a fruitless pursuit for me but a different situation than someone who loses a job over their image being used like that,” said Johansson.
Hundreds of sexual deepfake app advertisements featuring actresses Emma Watson and Scarlett Johansson ran on Facebook and Instagram over the last few days. https://t.co/hQTVvKngw5
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 9, 2023
Johansson rightly noted that the trouble with regulating Deepfake porn is the fact that certain countries do not have the same laws as the United States regarding image rights. She said: “Also, every country has their own legalese regarding the right to your own image, so while you may be able to take down sites in the U.S. that are using your face, the same rules might not apply in Germany. Even if you copyright pictures with your image that belong to you, the same copyright laws don’t apply overseas. I have sadly been down this road many, many times.”
“The fact is that trying to protect yourself from the internet and its depravity is basically a lost cause, for the most part,” Johansson admitted.
Johannson advised people to take extra precautions to protect their image, no matter how strictly Google or other websites set their policies against Deepfake porn videos.
“People think that they are protected by their internet passwords and that only public figures or people of interest are hacked,” said Johansson. “But the truth is, there is no difference between someone hacking my account or someone hacking the person standing behind me on line at the grocery store’s account. It just depends on whether or not someone has the desire to target you.”
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