Adult World News

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.

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

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.