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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 1 month 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 70 points 1 month 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 1 month 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 10 points 1 month ago
[-] frunch@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

Clue in the one guy that doesn't please?

[-] grozzle@lemm.ee 13 points 1 month 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 25 points 1 month 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 17 points 1 month 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.

[-] eran_morad@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

These guys are tripping over each other to gargle the orange balls of a bitch who openly professes lust for his daughter.

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[-] MBM@lemmings.world 11 points 1 month ago

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

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[-] j4k3@lemmy.world 66 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 57 points 1 month 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 1 month ago

Oh damn, you should try switching to Dropout.

[-] Cosmos7349@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month 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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[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 41 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 47 points 1 month 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 12 points 1 month 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 12 points 1 month 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 13 points 1 month 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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[-] xnx@slrpnk.net 40 points 1 month 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 1 month ago
[-] MajinBlayze@lemmy.world 31 points 1 month 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 19 points 1 month ago

Nice thanks seems straightforward

[-] randon31415@lemmy.world 33 points 1 month 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 1 month 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)

[-] randon31415@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

There are billions of people. Find the right one, and a "reasonable person" could not tell the difference.

Image a law that said you cannot name your baby a name if someone else's name starts with the same letter. After 26 names, all future names would be illegal. The law essentially would make naming babies illegal.

The "alphabet" in this case is the distict visual depiction of all people. As long as the visual innumeration of "reasonable people" is small enough, it essentially makes any generation illegal. Conversely, if "reasonable people" granulated fine enough, it makes avoiding prosecution trivial by adding minor conflicting details.

[-] callouscomic@lemm.ee 11 points 1 month ago

You should maybe do a little more reading on the word "reasonable."

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[-] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

So if I make AI porn of a celebrity but give her a face tattoo saying AI generated then its legal?

[-] gnutrino@programming.dev 8 points 1 month ago

Doubt it, a reasonable person will generally be able to tell if you're obviously taking the piss with the law. Feel free to try it and let us know how you get on though.

[-] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

But that is not what the bill says, the reasonable person is not evaluating my intent, it's evaluating if the video is "indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual" which in this case it would be very distinguishable since the individual does not have said face tattoo.

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[-] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago

Sure, you can make lora training on unconsenting people illegal

Nobody said this needs to be illegal. Scrape up my pictures and render me jumping the grand canyon on a motorcycle or something. I don't care.

But spread around fake nudes and then I am happy we have a law I can use against you.

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[-] homura1650@lemm.ee 33 points 1 month 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.

[-] finley@lemm.ee 27 points 1 month 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 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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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[-] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month 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

[-] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 month ago

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

[-] MagicShel@programming.dev 10 points 1 month ago

Is this just "AI porn bill" because that's the most common way of doing it these days? I should expect the product is what's being sanctioned and not the method.

[-] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 28 points 1 month ago

Not just AI…

…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….

This probably also covers using MS Paint.

[-] MagicShel@programming.dev 6 points 1 month ago

Back to my hand drawn stick figure celebrity porn, I suppose.

[-] niucllos@lemm.ee 11 points 1 month ago

As long as it can't be mistaken for the actual person it moves the stigma from them doing weird things to the artist doing weird things

[-] Asifall@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

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

That's a predicate for any law bound to the Commerce Clause. You need to demonstrate the regulation is being applied to interstate traffic. Anything else would be limited to state/municipal regulations.

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

That's arguably a better rule than the more traditional flat-fee penalties, as it curbs the impulse to treat violations as cost-of-business. A firm that makes $1B/year isn't going to blink at a handful of $1000 judgements.

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.

A revenge-porn law that can be evaded by asserting "This isn't Taylor Swift, its Tay Swiff and any resemblance of an existing celebrity is purely coincidental" would be toothless. We already apply these rules for traditional animated assets. You'd be liable for producing an animated short staring "Definitely Not Mickey Mouse" under the same reasoning.

This doesn't prevent you from creating a unique art asset. And certainly there's a superabundance of original pornographic art models and porn models generated with the consent of the living model. The hitch here is obvious, though. You're presumed to own your own likeness.

My biggest complaint is that it only seems to apply to pornography. And I suspect we'll see people challenge the application of the law by producing "parody" porn or "news commentary" porn. What the SCOTUS does with that remains to be seen.

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[-] youngalfred@lemm.ee 9 points 1 month 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 1 month 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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[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 6 points 1 month ago

Another law that will be used to target Gamers™

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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
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