American elected officials want to criminalize deepfakes

American elected officials are calling for the adoption of legislation to combat the creation of deepkfakes following explicit (fake) photos of Taylor Swift were viewed millions of times online.

Deepfakes are in the crosshairs of American elected officials. As reported by the BBC, several of them are calling for legislation on these false images or videos generated by artificial intelligence (AI) following the excitement caused by the broadcast on Twitter of several sequences of a pornographic nature which feature the singer Taylor Swift. This is the case of the Democratic representative in Congress, Joe Morelle, who described their spread on social networks as “appalling”.

These fake videos “can cause irrevocable emotional, financial and reputational harm and unfortunately, women are disproportionately affected,” lamented the elected official who initiated a bill last year (not adopted) which would have made it illegal to share pornographic deepfakes without consent.

“What happened to Taylor Swift is not new,” said Democratic Representative Yvette D. Clarke. on Twitter. “For years,” women have been victims of this technology,” she adds, regretting that “thanks to advances in AI, creating deepfakes has become easier and cheaper.”

Photos massively shared on Twitter

A sentiment shared by Tom Kean Jr, Republican member of Congress who calls for “adequate and necessary surveillance” of AI as well as collective awareness of necessary regulation.

“We live in a very advanced and constantly evolving technological world. Whether the victim is Taylor Swift or any young person in our country, we must put in place rules to combat this alarming trend,” he said. encouraged in a message posted on Twitter.

Taylor Swift deepfakes posted on Twitter and Telegram quickly went viral. According to The Verge, one of the fake images reached 45 million views. For its part, Twitter said it was “actively removing” the images and taking “appropriate action” once morest the accounts involved in their distribution.

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