The First Lady spoke in Congress about the concerning rise in deepfake images
Since being reinstated as First Lady of the United States following her husband’s January inauguration, Melania Trump has been putting her new position of power to good use by backing a vital sexual assault bill.
More specifically, the 54-year-old is taking a stand against revenge porn, and has recently been petitioning for victims of the non-consensual sharing of sexually explicit images and deepfake pornography to be further protected.
What is deepfake imagery?
Deepfakes are images and audio that has been edited using artificial intelligence in order to depict either real, or non-existent people.
The technology allows a description of physical characteristics to conjure up a totally fictionalised image. Or, facial recognition algorithms and artificial neural networks can be used to recreate an image of a real person, and can see them placed into fictional scenarios.
The advanced technology is often viewed as harmful, however, and in recent years, has been used by cybercriminals to create celebrity pornographic content, fake news, political deception, and even child sexual abuse material.
What is revenge porn?
Similarly violating, revenge porn sees private, often sexual images and videos of a person shared online by another, without their consent.
The majority of cases see the perpetrator either attempting to embarrass or inflict distress onto the other person, or using the content as a means of financial blackmail.
In the UK, revenge porn is a criminal offence, for which the perpetrator could be sentenced to a maximum of two years behind bars, and a fine. In the US, however, though almost all 50 states have laws banning revenge porn, there is no federal law against it – as per McAllister Olivarius.
First Lady Melania Trump is a keen supporter of the bill (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
What are Melania’s views?
Speaking in the White House last month, Melania told attendees of her plans for the campaign against sexual violence online.
“I am here with you today with a common goal — to protect our youth from online harm,” she began.
“The widespread presence of abusive behaviour in the digital domain affects the daily lives of our children, families and communities.”
During her Republican husband Donald Trump’s first term in the Oval Office, Slovenian-born Melania focussed much of her attention on the online safety of children through her ‘Be Best’ campaign.
As we say, recent months have seen the mother-of-one strongly backing a bill known as the ‘Take It Down Act’, which was previously introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Melania has been using her platform for good (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The ‘Take It Down’ Act, explained
The policy would make it unlawful for ‘non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including ‘digital forgeries’ created with AI software (or deepfake pornography’ to be knowingly published.
The bill also requires social media sites to put protocols into place, which would see such content immediately removed if flagged by a victim.
Owners of the sites would be given 48 hours to orchestrate such measures, and prevent any reappearances of this content.
A federal offence for knowingly publishing – or threatening to publish – explicit images without consent would also be established under the bill.
The release of identifiable, realistic, computer-generated images would be the prime focus of such an offence.
The bill has, so far, received bipartisan support in the Senate, which was re-instated in February.
Currently, however, it is still waiting to be passed in the House.
Elliston Berry spoke in Congress (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
Melania’s latest moves
Appearing in Congress on Tuesday (4 Mar), Melania was joined by two young women – Elliston Berry and Haley Ferguson – both of whom are keen supporters of her sexual assault message.
Whilst Texas-based Berry was previously made a victim of an AI-generated, sexually explicit deepfake image, Ferguson, from Tennessee, was the recipient of a scholarship instituted during Melania’s first term as First Lady.
Speaking to lawmakers, Berry revealed that, aged 14, a classmate used an AI app to attach her body to a nude photo, before it was spread on social media.
“Fear, shock and disgust were just some of the many emotions I felt,” she recalled the horror before a hoard of politicians. I felt responsible and began to blame myself and was ashamed to tell my parents, despite doing nothing wrong.”
Melania also spoke out in Congress, telling attendees: “It’s heartbreaking to witness young teens, especially girls, grappling with the overwhelming challenges posed by malicious online content, like deepfakes.”This toxic environment can be severely damaging. Every young person deserves a safe online space to express themselves freely, without the looming threat of exploitation or harm.”
