07.25.24

Durbin Celebrates Passage Of His Bill To Tackle Nonconsensual, Sexually-Explicit Deepfakes In Speech On The Senate Floor

The Senate unanimously passed the DEFIANCE Act on Tuesday evening

WASHINGTON – In a speech on the Senate floor, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, celebrated Senate passage of his bipartisan Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act of 2024 (DEFIANCE Act), legislation that will hold accountable those responsible for the proliferation of nonconsensual, sexually-explicit “deepfake” images and videos.

Durbin began by showcasing how deepfakes are impacting women and girls everywhere, saying: “Women and girls from all walks of life—from Taylor Swift, to Megan Thee Stallion, to high school girls in my home state of Illinois—have been victims of this form of image-based sexual abuse. And, sadly, none of them have legal recourse against the perpetrators because the law is not keeping up with technology. Now, that is starting to change.”

Durbin then invoked research showing the dramatic rise in this type of sexual abuse, making the DEFIANCE Act all the more necessary, saying: “This landmark legislation cannot become law soon enough. This form of image-based sexual abuse has skyrocketed in recent years. One researcher found that the number of nonconsensual pornographic deepfake videos available online has increased 900 percent since 2019 … This explosive growth has been driven by advances in technology—namely, generative artificial intelligence. What used to take technology expertise and a lot of time can now be done at the push of a button.”

Durbin then highlighted the tremendous harm that sexual abuse of this nature takes on a victim, sharing the personal experience of the DEFIANCE Act’s House sponsor, Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): “Like far too many women, [Rep. AOC] has been the victim of nonconsensual, sexually-explicit deepfakes. She has described how this image-based sexual abuse has resurfaced trauma and haunts her thoughts even to this day. Once these deepfakes are seen, they cannot be unseen. As she put it, ‘deepfakes are a way of digitizing violent humiliation against other people.’ And the design and function of the internet amplify the scale and spread of this type of exploitation. Survivors of nonconsensual, sexually-explicit deepfakes are often forced to relive their trauma and face ongoing harm that increases exponentially over time, due to the viral flow of information on the internet and the difficulty of removing harmful content.”

Durbin concluded by outlining the path forward and calling for House passage and the President to sign the DEFIANCE Act into law expeditiously, saying: “But our work is far from being done. I call on the House of Representatives to move on this issue immediately and follow the Senate’s lead and quickly take up and pass the DEFIANCE Act … When the DEFIANCE Act is signed into law if it is brought up and passes the House, victims will finally have the ability to hold civilly liable those who produce, disclose, solicit, or possess sexually-explicit deepfakes while knowingly or recklessly disregarding that the person depicted did not consent to the conduct. Congress has waited long enough. It is past time to give victims of nonconsensual, sexually-explicit deepfakes the tools they need to fight back.”

Video of Durbin’s floor speech is available here.

Audio of Durbin’s floor speech is available here.

Footage of Durbin’s floor speech is available here for TV Stations.

In addition to Durbin, the legislation was introduced in the Senate by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Josh Hawley (R-MO). Additionally, the bill is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Angus King (I-ME), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM).

The bill is supported by the Sexual Violence Prevention Association, the National Organization for Women, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, the National Women’s Law Center, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, My Image My Choice, PACT, Rights4Girls, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Software & Information Industry Association, ACT | The App Association, The Internet and Competitive Networks Association, and others.

The volume of “deepfake” content available online is increasing exponentially as the technology used to create it has become more accessible to the public. The overwhelming majority of this material is sexually explicit and is produced without the consent of the person depicted. A 2019 study found that 96 percent of deepfake videos were nonconsensual pornography.

One researcher found that:

  • The number of nonconsensual pornographic deepfake videos available online has increased ninefold since 2019;
  • Such videos have been viewed almost four billion times;
  • Monthly traffic to the top 20 deepfake sites increased by 285 percent from July 2020 to July 2023; and
  • Search engines directed 25.2 million visits to the top five most popular deepfake sites in July 2023 alone.

The bill creates a federal civil remedy for victims who are identifiable in a “digital forgery,” which is defined as an intimate visual depiction created through the use of software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or any other computer-generated or technological means that is indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual.

A one-pager of the legislation can be found here. 

Visit this webpage for an overview of the Committee’s efforts to protect kids online, including descriptions of the pending legislation, hearings, and a timeline of events.

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