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Washinton State has a new law that will prosecute people passing on deep fake porn
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| 19th March 2024
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| See article from abovethelaw.com |
A new Washington state law will make it illegal to share fake pornography that appears to depict real people having sex. Advancements in artificial intelligence have made it easy to use a single photograph to impose someone's features on
realistic-looking deepfake porn. The new Washington law, which Gov. Jay Inslee signed last week, will make it a gross misdemeanor to knowingly share fabricated intimate images of people without their consent. People can be prosecuted if they share
deepfake porn of unconsenting adults more than once. The trouble is that such images and videos are already widely available on the internet and it seems horribly disproportionate to persecute people for passing on interesting snippets they
come across. |
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Indiana introduces age/ID verification for porn whilst Pornhub blocks itself in Texas
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| 15th March 2024
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| See article from xbiz.com See
article from beaumontenterprise.com |
Indiana's Republican governor, Eric Holcomb, has signed into law the state's version of the age/ID verification bills being sponsored around the country by anti-porn religious conservatives. SB 17 requires age verification for material that Indiana
deems harmful to minors. The new law will take effect July 1. This bill stipulates that any website that displays 'material harmful to minors,' is required to use an age verification method to guarantee only adults are accessing the website, the
civil liberties group wrote. If the website fails to do so, the parents of a child harmed by the website's content can sue for damages. And, as passed in the Indiana House, the bill would also allow the Attorney General to sue companies who fail to
follow the law. SB 17 will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on free expression online. The legitimate fear of having personal information exposed may deter adults from accessing legal and consensual adult content, thereby limiting their freedom
to explore and express themselves in a private digital space, the ACLU of Indiana concluded. Indiana is the ninth U.S. state to pass a law mandating age/ID verification for viewing adult content.
Meanwhile in Texas, Pornhub has decided to voluntarily withdraw its content from the state. Texas was one of the earlier states to inflict age/ID verification but its enforcement was delayed by a legal case. That legal case has just been lost so Pornhub
has reverted to the self blocking policy implemented in other states with age/ID verification requirements. A judgment on March 8 from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas can enforce a new law requiring age-verification systems on porn
websites . Viewers who attempt to visit Pornhub.com are met with a statement from the site's owners, Aylo Global Entertainment, explaining the block: you may know, your elected officials in Texas are requiring
us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website, the statement reads in part. Not only does this impinge on the rights of adults to access protected speech, it fails strict scrutiny by employing the least effective and yet also most
restrictive means of accomplishing Texas' stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors.
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German Government Now Exporting Anti-Porn Surveillance Tool
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| 14th February 2024
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| See article from xbiz.com |
A moral campaigner who has been waging a one-man War on Porn in Germany, and who developed an AI tool that scans online content to identify porn images, has now exported that technology for use by a Belgian media censor. Tobias Schmid, director of the
State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia, announced the tool after supervising its development himself. He named it KIVI, a word play referencing surveillance. A spokeswoman for the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia confirmed
to NetzPolitik that there were exploratory talks taking place regarding expanding the use of KIVI across Europe. Last week, it was confirmed that Belgium's Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) is also automatically searching the Internet, looking for
freely accessible pornography, among other things. KIVI was developed for Schmid by Berlin-based Condat AG and is currently being used by all 14 state media authorities in Germany. In addition to pornography, KIVI is also trained to detect categories
like extremism, hate speech, swastikas or the glorification of drugs. Belgium's CSA is now scanning X.com for adult content, Meineck reported, noting, From September to December 2023, around 5,000 suspicious activity reports were collected. Examiners
viewed around a fifth of it, and around 90% of this content was 'clearly' pornographic, and thus should not be accessible without strict age controls. |
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US politicians propose laws to criminalise commonplace deep fake porn of celebrities
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| 4th February 2024
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| See article from globalvillagespace.com
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Legislators in the US have introduced the DEFIANCE (Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits) Act of 2024 aimed at censoring deepfake content on the internet. This legislative response comes in the wake of a disturbing incident
involving Taylor Swift, whose likeness was exploited in AI-generated explicit images that circulated widely on social media platforms. The DEFIANCE Act takes holds creator accountable for the dissemination of digitally forged, sexually explicit
content. The primary focus of the legislation is to empower victims, particularly women, allowing them to seek legal recourse against those responsible for creating and spreading deepfakes. US Senator Josh Hawley, a key proponent of the DEFIANCE Act,
emphasized the importance of protecting innocent individuals from being featured in AI-generated pornography. He stated: Nobody--neither celebrities nor ordinary Americans--should ever have to find themselves featured in
AI pornography. Innocent people have a right to defend their reputations and hold perpetrators accountable in court. This bill will make that a reality. Safeguarding Victims
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4th February 2024
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Religious US Senator calls for porn viewing to be criminalised See article from
rollingstone.com |
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| 14th
January 2024
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Ofcom speaks of behind the scenes discussions for international age verification See article from ofcom.org.uk
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| 14th January 2024
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DIY pornography, 1970s-style: The forgotten story of Australia's pioneering erotic filmmakers See
article from abc.net.au |
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The UK government calls for evidence for its biased review seeking to further censor and control internet pornography
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11th January 2024
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| See article from gov.uk
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The UK Government's Department for Science, Innovation, Technology and Censorship has called for evidence to inform the final recommendations of its 'Independent' Pornography Review. The government writes: The government
wants to ensure that any legislation and regulation operates appropriately for all pornographic content, and that the criminal justice system have the tools they need to respond to online illegal pornographic material, and exploitation and abuse in the
industry. The Independent Pornography Review involves a comprehensive assessment of the legislation, regulation and enforcement of online and offline pornographic content, and is overseen by Independent Lead Reviewer Baroness
Gabby Bertin. The review will take an evidence-based approach to develop a range of recommendations on how to best to achieve the review's objectives:
understand the prevalence and harmful impact of illegal pornography online, and the impact on viewers of other forms of legal pornography, including emerging themes like AI-generated pornography, and the impact on viewer's
attitudes to violence against women and girls; assess the public's awareness and understanding of existing regulation and legislation of pornography; consider the current rules in place to
regulate the pornography industry, comparing online and offline laws; determine if law enforcers and the justice system are responding to illegal pornography sufficiently, and if change is needed;
find out how prevalent human trafficking and exploitation is in the industry, before recommending how to identify and tackle this; use this knowledge to set out what more can be done to provide those who need it with guidance
on the potential harmful impact of pornography.
To ensure the review's final recommendations are robust, it is important that a broad range of views and evidence are considered. This call for evidence invites:
members of the public the government subject matter experts organisations
to contribute to the review. The call for evidence closes on 7 March 2024.
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