A new warning for families — kids are using artificial intelligence to create and distribute content about other students. It is a problem popping up across the country.
A deepfake is an image, video, or audio recording that has been edited to replace a person with someone else that makes it look authentic — like placing someone’s face on another person’s body.
This content often results in a spike of anxiety in high schoolers, and victims who have had content made of themselves.
A new bill is providing possible solutions to help stop the spread of this sexually exploitative content.
“It’s incredibly hard to be a teenager right now,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. “To be a parent of a teenager, you often feel powerless, helpless to help your kids because they face so many challenges.”
Kids are now facing many challenges their parents did not deal with when they were in school.
“There’s a pattern we’re seeing of nonconsensual explicit imagery,” said Sen. Cruz.
According to Sen. Cruz, 90% of people targeted for these deepfakes online are women or teenage girls.
“More and more we’re seeing kids who are the victims of one ninth-grader deciding to bully another ninth-grader, and putting out explicit images to all the other kids in the class,” said Sen. Cruz.
He is trying to change that, with his “Take It Down Act.” The bill would do two things: make it a felony to post nonconsensual explicit imagery online, and give big tech companies 48 hours to take down explicit content once they receive a victim’s complaint.
“There is a little bit of fear, the fear of the unknown,” said San Marcos CISD Superintendent Michael Cardona.
According to Cardona, his district has not had a case of AI bullying that he is aware of.
He told CBS Austin he has sat in on hearings where the topic was discussed to set precautions.
“I think for us, it’s getting a policy in front of our school board members so they can approve it,” he said. “Then getting that message out to the community as to why we’re doing certain things.”
Cardona said he is going to let students have a voice on the topic when school starts.
“How would you solve it? This is your campus, so you tell us,” he said.
Sen. Cruz met with two high school girls who experienced this type of bullying firsthand in June.
“They both had almost the exact same thing happen to them,” he said. “Boys in their classes took pictures from social media and used deepfake technology to create naked, explicit images of them and then sent them to all of their classmates at school.”
One high schooler was from New Jersey, the other from a town just outside of Dallas.
“I always will have a fear of this happening again or resurfacing just because it can so easily happen to anybody, which is what happened to me,” said Elliston Berry, who was just 14 when she discovered deepfake nude images of herself circulating on social media.
The state of Texas has some laws in place to protect children from the dangers of AI. Lawmakers are planning on creating more in the next legislative session.
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