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submitted 3 months ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

THE SENATE UNANIMOUSLY passed a bipartisan bill to provide recourse to victims of porn deepfakes — or sexually-explicit, non-consensual images created with artificial intelligence

The legislation, called the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act — passed in Congress’ upper chamber on Tuesday.  The legislation has been led by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), as well as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in the House.

The legislation would amend the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to allow people to sue those who produce, distribute, or receive the deepfake pornography, if they “knew or recklessly disregarded” the fact that the victim did not consent to those images.

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[-] doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 141 points 3 months ago

Unanimously

While I think 'deepfake porn is bad' is pretty uncontroversial, I'm surprised not one senator decided to vote nay just to spite AOC.

[-] mecfs@lemmy.world 72 points 3 months ago

Because the headline is misleading. The bill was written by a bipartisan group of democrats and republicans, including AOC.

It’s weird to call it AOC’s bill in this context.

[-] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 36 points 3 months ago

It would not be nearly the first time that Republicans shot down their own bill for no reason other than some Democrats said it was a good bill.

[-] Zozano@lemy.lol 11 points 3 months ago
[-] frunch@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

Clue in the one guy that doesn't please?

[-] grozzle@lemm.ee 15 points 3 months ago

i'm guessing because she's the only senator with a notable quantity of deepfake porn made of her.

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[-] pyre@lemmy.world 24 points 3 months ago

I'm guessing "defending nonconsensual porn" seemed like something you wouldn't want on your record and in attack ads even for the troglodytes.

[-] frezik@midwest.social 16 points 3 months ago

Once it gets to a vote, yes. The way to kill these things is to bury it in procedure and pretend you're just doing due diligence. Still pretty amazing that it got this far.

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[-] MBM 9 points 3 months ago

I'm surprised from the other side, there's always people defending deepfake porn on Lemmy

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[-] j4k3@lemmy.world 65 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Things have already been moving towards nobody models. I think this will eventually have the consequence of nobodies becoming the new somebodies as this will result in a lot of very well developed nobodies and move the community into furthering their development instead of the deepfake stuff. You'll eventually be watching Hollywood quality feature films full of nobodies. There is some malicious potential with deep fakes, but the vast majority are simply people learning the tools. This will alter that learning target and the memes.

[-] aesthelete@lemmy.world 58 points 3 months ago

You’ll eventually be watching Hollywood quality feature films full of nobodies.

With the content on modern streaming services, I've been doing this for a while already.

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 11 points 3 months ago

Oh damn, you should try switching to Dropout.

[-] Cosmos7349@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

That's where the money is, so yes that's where the majority of work is. But I do think one of the drivers of this is to help protect more local instances; to create consequences for things like fake revenge porn or distributing deepfakes of classmates/teachers in your school, etc.

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[-] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 10 points 3 months ago

Of course, eventually somebody will look exactly like the nobody, so the owners of the nobody will sue that somebody to block them from pretending to be that nobody in videos.

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[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 3 months ago

I see it eventually happening in porn, but it isn't happening in major motion pictures any time too soon. People won't follow and actively go see a cgi actor in a movie like they would a real one. Hollywood pays big money for A list stars because those people get asses in seats. That, along with tech not being there quite yet, and Hollywood locked under sag contract to only do certain things with AI all adds up to nobody's being a ways off.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

I also remember years ago reading scare headlines about how the CG in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was so realistic that it would be the end of Hollywood actors, they would all be CG.

So I'll take that claim with a huge grain of salt.

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[-] Etterra@lemmy.world 44 points 3 months ago

Did she use the "it can happen to you" gambit? Because the strongest motivators for politicians are power, wealth, and self preservation.

[-] C126@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 months ago

Strongest? You mean only

[-] xnx@slrpnk.net 38 points 3 months ago

Paywall, does it have any shady stuff slipped in like KOSA, SOPA, and the other “protect the children” laws usually have?

[-] NotAnotherLemmyUser@lemmy.world 36 points 3 months ago
[-] MajinBlayze@lemmy.world 32 points 3 months ago

It's actually reasonably short. I'm not seeing anything that doesn't appear directly related to derpfakes

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[-] xnx@slrpnk.net 20 points 3 months ago

Nice thanks seems straightforward

[-] homura1650@lemm.ee 33 points 3 months ago

The bill: https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/s3696/BILLS-118s3696es.xml

As always, I read the bill expecting to be deeply disappointed; but was pleasantly surprised with this one. It's not going to solve the issue, but I don't really know of anything they can do to solve it. My guess is this will mostly be effective at going after large scale abuses (such as websites dedicated to deepfake porn, or general purpose deepfake sites with no safeguards in place).

My first impressions on specific parts of the bill:

  1. The bill is written as an amendment to the 2022 appropriations act. This isn't that strange, but I haven't actually cross-references that, so might be misunderstanding some subtlety.

  2. The definition of digital forgery is broad in terms of the means. Basically anything done on a computer counts, not just AI. In contrast, it is narrow in the result, requiring that:

when viewed as a whole by a reasonable person, is indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual.

There is a lot of objectionable material that is not covered by this. Personally, I would like to see a broader test, but can't think of any that I would be comfortable with

  1. The depiction also needs to be relevant to interstate or foreign commerce. There hands are tied by the constitution on this one. Unless Wickard v Fillburn us overturned though, me producing a deepfake for personal use reduces my interstate porn consumption, so it qualifies. By explicitly incorporating the constitutional test, the law will survive any change made to what qualifies as interstate commerce.

  2. The mens rea required is "person who knows or recklessly disregards that the identifiable individual has not consented to such disclosure" No complaints on this standard.

  3. This is grounds for civil suits only; nothing criminal. Makes sense, as criminal would normally be a state issue and, as mentioned earlier, this seems mostly targeted at large scale operations, which can be prevented with enough civil litigation.

  4. Max damage is:

    • $150k
    • Unless it can be linked to an actual or attempted sexual assult, stalking or harassment, in which case it increases to $250k
    • Or you can sue for actual damages (including any profits made as a result of the deepfake)
  5. Plaintifs can use a pseudonym, and all personally identifiable information is to be redacted or filed under seal. Intimate images turned over in discovery remains in the custody of the court

  6. 10 year statute of limitations. Starting at when the plaintif could reasonably have learned about the images, or turns 18.

  7. States remain free to create their own laws that are "at least as protective of the rights of a victim".

My guess is the "at least as protective" portion is there because a state suite would prevent a federal suit under this law, as there is an explicit bar on duplicative recovery, but I have not dug into the referenced law to see what that covers.

[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 32 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Am I the only one that still gets uncomfortable every time the government tries to regulate advanced technology?

—~~It's not a Libertarian thing to me as much as it's a~~ 'politicians don't understand technology thing.'

[-] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 42 points 3 months ago

Arguing against laws that prohibit sexual exploitation with high tech tools, because of the nature of technology, would be like arguing against laws that prohibit rape because of the nature of human sexuality.

The "it still is going to happen" argument doesn't matter, because the point of the law isn't to eliminate something 100%, it is to create consequences for those who continue to do what the law prohibits.

It's not some slippery slope either, it is extremely easy not to make involuntary pornography of other people.

[-] Contravariant@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

The worrying aspect of these laws are always that they focus too much on the method. This law claims to be about preventing a particular new technology, but then goes on to apply to all software.

And frankly if you need a clause about how someone is making fake pornography of someone then something is off. Something shouldn't be illegal simply because it is easy.

Deepfakes shouldn't be any more or less illegal than photos made of a doppelgänger or an extremely photorealistic painting (and does photorealism even matter? To the victims, I mean.). A good law should explain why those actions are illegal and when and not just restrict itself to applying solely to 'technology' and say oh if it only restricts technology then we should be all right.

[-] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

I am not ok with making art a crime.

Do not give away basic human rights because of emotional appeals.

If sexual blackmail is the problem, prosecute sexual blackmail.

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[-] BlackPenguins@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

AOC is young. I think she's a politician that does understand the technology and if she needs to she can educate the other boomers on the bill.

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[-] randon31415@lemmy.world 32 points 3 months ago

How close does the deep fake need to be to the original? What we saw with DALLE2 was that each person whose face was restricted made a hole in the latent space of all faces. After enough celebrities faces were restricted, there were so many latent space holes that the algorithm couldn't make faces at all since every producable face was a certain "distance" away from a restriction.

Sure, you can make lora training on unconsenting people illegal and also make particular prompts illegal, but there is enough raw data and vague prompts to mold a generation into something that looks like it was done the illegal way without breaking either of those two restrictions.

[-] gnutrino@programming.dev 23 points 3 months ago

The text of the bill specifies

when viewed as a whole by a reasonable person, is indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual.

So it's not trying to chase specific implementations but using a "reasonable person" test (which I would argue is a good thing)

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[-] arken@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

the algorithm couldn't make faces at all

And what would be lost? I might be missing something, but what is the benefit of being able to make fake people faces that outweighs the damage it can do to people's lives and the chaos wrecked on society from deepfakes etc?

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[-] finley@lemm.ee 26 points 3 months ago

Ok, fist of all, politicians need to stop it with these acronyms for every law they want to pass. It’s getting ridiculous. Just give the damned law a regular-ass name. It doesn’t have to be all special and catchy-sounding damn.

Second, I’m really surprised to hear of anything passing the senate unanimously, other than a bill expressing the love of silly acronyms. And weak campaign finance laws.

Anyway, I’m glad that at least something is being done to address this, but I just know someone in the House is gonna fuck this up.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I looked it up: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/3696/all-actions

It passed by unanimous voice vote. That is, the president of the Senate (pro tempore, usually Patty Murray) asked for all in favor, and at least one person said "yea" and when asked for all opposed, nobody said "nay". There wasn't a roll call vote, so we don't know how many people (or who) actually voted for it.

Edit: it was probably on C-Span, so you can probably find a recording and get an idea of how many people were there, and how many yeas you hear, if you're so inclined.

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[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 21 points 3 months ago

distribute, or receive the deepfake pornography

Does this make deepfake pornography more restricted than real sexual images either created or publicly released without consent?

[-] drislands@lemmy.world 25 points 3 months ago

I think so. In a way, it makes sense -- a lot of people are of the (shitty) opinion that if you take lewd pictures of yourself, it's your fault if they're disseminated. With lewd deepfakes, there's less opportunity for victim blaming, and therefore wider support.

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[-] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago

To improve rights to relief for individuals affected by non-consensual activities involving intimate digital forgeries, and for other purposes.

Congress finds that:

(1) Digital forgeries, often called deepfakes, are synthetic images and videos that look realistic. The technology to create digital forgeries is now ubiquitous and easy to use. Hundreds of apps are available that can quickly generate digital forgeries without the need for any technical expertise.

(2) Digital forgeries can be wholly fictitious but can also manipulate images of real people to depict sexually intimate conduct that did not occur. For example, some digital forgeries will paste the face of an individual onto the body of a real or fictitious individual who is nude or who is engaging in sexual activity. Another example is a photograph of an individual that is manipulated to digitally remove the clothing of the individual so that the person appears to be nude.

“(3) DIGITAL FORGERY.—

“(A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘digital forgery’ means any intimate visual depiction of an identifiable individual created through the use of software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or any other computer-generated or technological means, including by adapting, modifying, manipulating, or altering an authentic visual depiction, that, when viewed as a whole by a reasonable person, is indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual.

Source

[-] Asifall@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Not convinced on this one

It seems like the bill is being pitched as protecting women who have fake nudes passed around their school but the text of the bill seems more aimed at the Taylor swift case.

1 The bill only applies where there is an “intent to distribute”

2 The bill talks about damages being calculated based on the profit of the defendant

The bill also states that you can’t label the image as AI generated or rely on the context of publication to avoid running afoul of this law. That seems at odds with the 1st amendment.

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[-] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 months ago

Ohh boy I bet the users in the unstable community are shaking right now

[-] youngalfred@lemm.ee 7 points 3 months ago

Question from an outsider:
Do all bills in the states have to have a fancy acronym?
It looks like the senate is the first step, is that right? Next is the house? It's the opposite where I am.

[-] Irremarkable@fedia.io 13 points 3 months ago

Not all bills do, but the majority of big ones you hear about do. It's simply a marketing thing

And correct, it'll move to the House, where if it passes it will move to the president's desk. Considering it was unanimous in the Senate, I can't see it having any issues in the House.

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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
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