Legal Protections Urgently Required as Taylor Swift Deepfakes Gain Prominence

Deepfake pornography featuring Taylor Swift has been circulating on the social media platform X, raising concerns about the lack of digital privacy protections for victims worldwide. The origin of the fake images, which have garnered tens of millions of views since Wednesday, remains unknown. In response, X announced that their team is actively working to remove all non-consensual nudity from their site, as it is strictly prohibited. The company emphasized its commitment to providing a safe and respectful environment for all users. Taylor Swift has not publicly commented on the matter.

While Swift may be the latest celebrity targeted by deepfakes, lawyer Carrie Goldberg, who works with victims of tech abuse in New York City, has observed an increase in non-celebrities and children falling victim to this form of online abuse over the past decade. Goldberg states that deepfakes are filling in the gap of legal protections, despite progress made in banning the non-consensual dissemination of nude images.

Deepfakes, which involve manipulated media files that create false images or videos of people, have gained popularity in recent years. Wired estimates that at least 244,635 deepfake videos depicting pornography were uploaded to the top 35 websites hosting such content in the first nine months of 2023.

While ten states, including Virginia and Texas, have criminal laws against deepfakes, there is currently no federal law in place. In an effort to combat the non-consensual sharing of sexual deepfake images online, Representative Joe Morelle introduced the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act in May 2023. However, the bill has not made significant progress since being referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. Additionally, legislators introduced the No Artificial Intelligence Fake Replicas And Unauthorized Duplications (No AI Fraud) Act in January, aiming to protect individuals from having their images and voice manipulated.

Advocates highlight the risk deepfakes pose to young women, who are predominantly targeted. Adam Dodge, founder of Endtab, a digital safety education and training company for victims of online harassment, emphasizes that deepfakes are part of a broader problem of online violence against women and girls. Dodge hopes that the attention brought to the issue by the Taylor Swift incident will lead to action against those creating and sharing these images.

Generating deepfakes is alarmingly easy, requiring no coding or AI experience. Online platforms enable users to generate deepfakes with just a few clicks and the submission of a photo or video. Deepfakes can be used for explicit content, as well as to generate false audio messages that have the potential to disrupt elections.

Experts warn that a network of companies and individuals benefits from and may be liable for deepfakes. This includes search engines providing information on creating deepfakes, products designed for malicious purposes, individuals using these products, and viewers who share the content. Removing all fake content from the internet is extremely challenging due to the rapid spread facilitated by the internet. While companies like Google and X ban the sharing of misleading media, they may be slow to act.

Holding social media platforms legally accountable for the dissemination of deepfakes is difficult due to protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This law states that platforms like Instagram or Facebook are not responsible for third-party content uploaded on their sites. However, if a platform has a unique feature that perpetuates harm, there is a possibility of holding them responsible, as demonstrated by a case involving the shutdown of Omegle, an online chat room facilitating child sex abuse.

Despite these challenges, experts argue that the U.S. lacks the necessary infrastructure to properly assist deepfake victims. Law enforcement is often inadequately trained or staffed to pursue anonymous attackers, leaving victims to face obstacles in seeking justice. Additionally, investigators may not fully understand how deepfakes function, placing the burden on victims to remove the images themselves.

Experts suggest that the solution lies in changing the law to no longer protect companies profiting from deepfake images and videos, considering their ease of generation. Goldberg emphasizes that victims should not be blamed since anyone can be targeted without consent merely for existing.