Taylor Swift’s viral deepfakes have put new momentum behind efforts to clamp down on deepfake porn. The White Home mentioned the incident was “alarming” and urged Congress to take legislative motion. So far, the US has had a piecemeal, state-by-state method to regulating the know-how. For instance, California and Virginia have banned the creation of pornographic deepfakes made with out consent. New York and Virginia additionally ban the distribution of this form of content material.
Nevertheless, we might lastly see motion on a federal stage. A brand new bipartisan invoice that might make sharing faux nude pictures a federal crime was not too long ago reintroduced within the US Congress. A deepfake porn scandal at a New Jersey high school has additionally pushed lawmakers to reply with a invoice known as the Stopping Deepfakes of Intimate Pictures Act. The eye Swift’s case has delivered to the issue would possibly drum up extra bipartisan assist.
Lawmakers around the globe are additionally pushing stricter legal guidelines for the know-how. The UK’s On-line Security Act, handed final yr, outlaws the sharing of deepfake porn materials, however not its creation. Perpetrators might withstand six months of jail time.
Within the European Union, a bunch of recent payments deal with the issue from completely different angles. The sweeping AI Act requires deepfake creators to obviously disclose that the fabric was created by AI, and the Digital Companies Act would require tech corporations to take away dangerous content material way more shortly.
China’s deepfake regulation, which entered into drive in 2023, goes the furthest. In China, deepfake creators have to take steps to forestall using their companies for unlawful or dangerous functions, ask for consent from customers earlier than making their pictures into deepfakes, authenticate folks’s identities, and label AI-generated content material.
Professionals: Regulation will supply victims recourse, maintain creators of nonconsensual deepfake pornography accountable, and create a robust deterrent. It additionally sends a transparent message that creating nonconsensual deepfakes just isn’t acceptable. Legal guidelines and public consciousness campaigns making it clear that individuals who create this form of deepfake porn are intercourse offenders might have an actual affect, says Ajder. “That might change the marginally blasé perspective that some folks have towards this sort of content material as not dangerous or not an actual type of sexual abuse,” he says.
Cons: It is going to be troublesome to implement these kinds of legal guidelines, says Ajder. With present methods, it is going to be arduous for victims to determine who has assaulted them and construct a case in opposition to that individual. The individual creating the deepfakes may additionally be in a unique jurisdiction, which makes prosecution harder.
