Speaker 1: A quick note before we start that this series explores
Speaker 1: sexualized imagery involving miners and violence. Please take care when listening. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm Olivia Carvill and I'm Maggie Murphy. We're the hosts
Speaker 1: of Levettown, a podcast series that explored the explosion of
Speaker 1: deep fake pornography in US high schools, and we're back
Speaker 1: in the studio for an update episode. We're here to
Speaker 1: tell you about a long awaited crackdown on deep fake
Speaker 1: pawn and to hear from parents who have dealt with
Speaker 1: this kind of cyber harassment firsthand. One is the mother
Speaker 1: of a victim, the other is the mother of a perpetrator.
Speaker 1: But first the news.
Speaker 2: The President sat to sign the bipartisan Take It Down
Speaker 2: at which would help combat, say actually explosit online materials
Speaker 2: sometimes generated by ai.
Speaker 1: US lawmakers have passed the Take It Down Act, the
Speaker 1: first federal legislation to lay out away for teens and
Speaker 1: young women to get non consensual pornography scrubbed of social media.
Speaker 1: The legislation also criminalizes publishing, or even threatening to publish
Speaker 1: revenge porn or deep fake images. Today, it's my honor
Speaker 1: to officially sign the Take It Down Act into law,
Speaker 1: this big thing, very important, so horrible.
Speaker 3: If you've already listened to the series, you'll know that
Speaker 3: things played out in Levittown the way they did largely
Speaker 3: because there was no law on the books at the
Speaker 3: state or federal level to address deep fake porn. The
Speaker 3: new federal law has its fans and its critics, and
Speaker 3: if you want to hear more about specifically what's in it,
Speaker 3: you can listen to a previous episode. But this episode,
Speaker 3: we're going to hear from a parent whose daughter was
Speaker 3: involved in wishing for this legislation after deep faked images
Speaker 3: of her were shared at her school. And we're also
Speaker 3: going to hear from another parent, one whose child has
Speaker 3: been on the opposite side of this harassment and who
Speaker 3: has harmed others. It's every parent's nightmare to think that
Speaker 3: their child could be a victim of deep fake pornography,
Speaker 3: of a long, intimidating campaign of cyber harassment. But what
Speaker 3: if you learned that your child was a perpetrator of
Speaker 3: a crime like this, That the child you nurtured and
Speaker 3: cared for not only created non consensual pornographic images of
Speaker 3: girls they knew from school, but they continue to harass
Speaker 3: them over the course of several years, all while hiding
Speaker 3: their identity online. What if you found out this was
Speaker 3: happening only when the police knocked on your door with
Speaker 3: a search warrant.
Speaker 4: I hid a glimpse of something that was absolutely horrible.
Speaker 4: In if it wasn't for the fake my son was involved,
Speaker 4: I still wouldn't even know about it. And parents need
Speaker 4: to know. You know, this needs to get sorted out.
Speaker 3: This is the mother of a young man who was
Speaker 3: accused of the kind of online harassment we covered in
Speaker 3: our series. She wanted to remain anonymous because she feared
Speaker 3: speaking out publicly could impact her career in safety. So
Speaker 3: we've agreed not to identify her or her son and
Speaker 3: will refer to her using a pseudonym, Barbara. She went
Speaker 3: through a lot with her son, and she said she
Speaker 3: thought it might help others to hear about it. Barbara
Speaker 3: says that when her son was young, she thought that
Speaker 3: she was lucky to have a happy child who was
Speaker 3: pretty adaptable pre puberty.
Speaker 4: He was literally an all round it really he loved
Speaker 4: a lot of different things. He had a lot of
Speaker 4: my characteristics, so we related. Well, he's quite creative, it
Speaker 4: was extremely companionable, just a lovely young boy.
Speaker 3: But over time things changed.
Speaker 4: He developed some mental health issues as he approached puberty,
Speaker 4: and was quite a dramatic change, very very sudden.
Speaker 3: She noticed her son pulling away from sports, school and
Speaker 3: his social life. To her, something knocked him off course,
Speaker 3: effectively driving him into isolation.
Speaker 4: The serious social withdrawal started to kick in and of
Speaker 4: his depression, and.
Speaker 5: That was difficult.
Speaker 4: So it went from a child who was participating in
Speaker 4: things to a teenager who refused to participate in It
Speaker 4: was like black and white. And started to have some
Speaker 4: negative comments about school as well, about his teachers or
Speaker 4: about not enjoying subjects. It can't be bothered. Also, a
Speaker 4: thing that I had noticed with him was that, unlike
Speaker 4: kids of my friends, he had no vision of his future.
Speaker 4: And I saw this teenager who refused to take any
Speaker 4: opportunities and had no vision of what he wanted to do.
Speaker 4: So there was, you know, so started to get quite worried.
Speaker 4: I was concerned enough about it even then that I
Speaker 4: did talk to a counselor was there anything I could do.
Speaker 4: I remember being told that because I was an awesome mother,
Speaker 4: I was a great role model and I didn't have
Speaker 4: to worry about anything. It is really one of the
Speaker 4: things that sticks in my throat. It's clearly things went
Speaker 4: pretty pear shaped, and I'm not going to go into
Speaker 4: the details because so I think mental health and mental illness,
Speaker 4: they don't come and neat little boxes.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Barbara was a pretty tech savvy mum, and there
Speaker 3: were always computers in their home. She didn't think much
Speaker 3: of her son using technology too, like playing Harry Potter
Speaker 3: video games, but as he got older, she noticed he
Speaker 3: spent more time online and he began making friends there too.
Speaker 4: In hindsight, there were some influences that started to come
Speaker 4: into the house. I will describe it in general terms.
Speaker 4: So if you're a parent and you've got a son
Speaker 4: and they're having a sex life in their bedrooms, locked
Speaker 4: up with the curtains drawn, and that you can't not
Speaker 4: know that's happening. There's signs of that. So that had
Speaker 4: been going on for a long time. But I thought
Speaker 4: it was consensual, you know, modern online relationships, because he
Speaker 4: told me by that time about real relationships that he
Speaker 4: believed were real. So I was aware that he was
Speaker 4: having an online thing. So though I wasn't expecting this
Speaker 4: other aspect, but I had warned him about things that
Speaker 4: can happen online. You know, these are things you need
Speaker 4: to be really careful about because people can get groomed
Speaker 4: and sucked into, you know stuff. You know. I tried
Speaker 4: to explain to him seriously, and he's just like, fuck
Speaker 4: you go away, Mom. What do you know?
Speaker 3: Can you recall the moment when you learned that your
Speaker 3: son was harassing women online with doctored graphic images.
Speaker 4: A bunch of investigators and police turned up with a
Speaker 4: search warrant. It was might have been a week end
Speaker 4: or after work. I was outside cleaning up with a
Speaker 4: wheelbarrow in a rake or something like that. I locked
Speaker 4: up on it. It's just this array of police and
Speaker 4: playing clothes investigators at my gate, and a female detective
Speaker 4: came to speak to me, show me that there was
Speaker 4: a search warrant.
Speaker 5: Ah.
Speaker 4: They asked if he lived here, where was he in
Speaker 4: the house. So I guess I was shocked, but I
Speaker 4: wasn't one hundred percent surprised, because I'd been really concerned
Speaker 4: about my son with the illness, and because I knew
Speaker 4: that I didn't know what he was doing.
Speaker 3: Can you characterize what you were told that he had
Speaker 3: been doing? Why the police were investigating him.
Speaker 4: That came in with a warrant and some babework. They
Speaker 4: left it on the bench top. I just read the
Speaker 4: front page had some charges on it, and I remember
Speaker 4: its like I think a lot of it was like
Speaker 4: online harm. Later, because he was having difficulty dealing with
Speaker 4: the lawyers. The lawyers are having difficulty because it's a
Speaker 4: new area. I thought, well, I'm going to have to
Speaker 4: have a closer look here, and I'm going to have
Speaker 4: to help. The lawyer had a massive file, and then
Speaker 4: I saw all the stuff.
Speaker 3: All Barbara knew were the charges brought against her son.
Speaker 3: He wasn't willing to talk then about what he'd been
Speaker 3: accused of. We asked if he would be open to
Speaker 3: speaking to us, and he declined. But looking at the
Speaker 3: online images the investigators had collected, this was the moment
Speaker 3: that Barbara realized what her son had been up to
Speaker 3: alone in his bedroom.
Speaker 4: We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: We're back with Barbara, who's taking her first look at
Speaker 3: the images that showed her what her son was doing online.
Speaker 4: And there was all these men, all these dick pictures
Speaker 4: were just like erect Penis's water War. Guys taking photos
Speaker 4: of themselves in front of their computer and then interacting
Speaker 4: somehow and this begang of other men and then they
Speaker 4: were talking just disgusting things about what they wanted to
Speaker 4: do to various females. Honestly, I had no clues that
Speaker 4: there was these kind of porn sits. To me, it
Speaker 4: seemed like a virtual, kind of a gang rate scenario.
Speaker 4: That's how a me imediately perceived it. Oh, my son
Speaker 4: has been groomed into this stuff for the lese like
Speaker 4: guys in their thirties forties. Not just young boys. These
Speaker 4: are adult men out there saying hey, you know you're
Speaker 4: one of us.
Speaker 3: As Olivia and I learned through our reporting, there are
Speaker 3: many places for non consensual pornographers to post their creations,
Speaker 3: places where they get a boost from likes and comments
Speaker 3: from other men.
Speaker 4: Tell us what you'd like to do to this woman,
Speaker 4: or show us a woman that we can make comments about,
Speaker 4: or whatever. Post pictures of you. You know, you're Jenna
Speaker 4: Talior on the computer, and I what the hell? It's
Speaker 4: never been something that my generation. It's just like it's
Speaker 4: just completely wouldn't even imagine it.
Speaker 3: Barbara says she hates when she hears the police talk
Speaker 3: about lone wolves committing these kinds of crimes. It bothers
Speaker 3: her when people suggest that the perpetrators are introverted acting alone,
Speaker 3: because that's not how she sees it.
Speaker 4: That's a gang activity. My son wasn't there alone. He
Speaker 4: was getting pumped up by mass testosterone, fueled by thousands
Speaker 4: of men around the world telling him he was the greatest.
Speaker 4: It's not just one fifteen year old inventing all of us.
Speaker 3: She knows all about this world now, but it's not
Speaker 3: something she was aware of before her son's arrest. And
Speaker 3: she's frustrated that the people she hired to help her
Speaker 3: son didn't flag this as a possible issue.
Speaker 4: And I've just been through years of talking to psychologists, psychiatrists.
Speaker 4: My son's been assessed and reassessed and reassessed and reassessed
Speaker 4: for years. Why didn't it come up? So I have
Speaker 4: a lot of questions about it, a lot of questions
Speaker 4: about those unknown harms.
Speaker 3: You know, has your son been willing to talk to
Speaker 3: you about what he was accused of?
Speaker 4: Largely No. At the start, he just denied everything, just
Speaker 4: denied everything for a long time. And that's when I
Speaker 4: realized the extend of the problem. I suppose before that
Speaker 4: I really trusted him. I thought we had a good relationship,
Speaker 4: and so I went through a period of feeling utterly
Speaker 4: betrayed and heartbroken basically for quite some time. It's irrepearable
Speaker 4: because this goes against my entire values, you know, values,
Speaker 4: everything that I've lived in my life to support women,
Speaker 4: encourage women, back women, and stand up to bullying and
Speaker 4: all that kind of thing. I just saw this as
Speaker 4: such some horrible monster that had come into my house
Speaker 4: without my permission.
Speaker 3: But Barbara says over time she started to look at
Speaker 3: the situation differently.
Speaker 4: And then I started to see him not as a criminal,
Speaker 4: but as a very vulnerable lesson, really struggling with his identity,
Speaker 4: with his social life, with his sexual development and stuff,
Speaker 4: and being just fucked into this because he didn't, you know,
Speaker 4: because of the state of his mind. Basically he was
Speaker 4: very vulnerable to it. I told my son this recently.
Speaker 4: This is a problem of male behavior, and it must
Speaker 4: be solved by men. Women aren't going to solve this problem. Mums,
Speaker 4: Angry mums aren't going to solve the problem men that
Speaker 4: have been through it. They're going to have to figure
Speaker 4: out how they got into it. Look at the damage
Speaker 4: its cause to others and to themselves, and then they're
Speaker 4: going to have to figure out a solution. I think
Speaker 4: that's the only way that that harm can be addressed.
Speaker 3: Really. I know you've spoken about him being up in
Speaker 3: his room and the vacuum that these groups failed for
Speaker 3: fear sung, but are there any other warding signs that
Speaker 3: you might tell parents to look out for.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wrote down a list of them. So a
Speaker 4: lack of friends in the real world, the amount of
Speaker 4: time spent online, that it is an all consuming, all
Speaker 4: consuming thing, pulling the curtains in shades, locking the door
Speaker 4: as a routine procedure to set themselves up for maximum privacy,
Speaker 4: having a printer installed in the bedroom suddenly when maybe
Speaker 4: they don't need it for work. There could be like
Speaker 4: little tiny things on their own as a one off.
Speaker 4: You might not think anything of them, but I think
Speaker 4: it's like scigns of addiction that that world becomes more
Speaker 4: real to them, so it affects their relationships in the home.
Speaker 4: They start to be rude, not listening to other people,
Speaker 4: that aggression that sort of like almost a hostility. Don't
Speaker 4: come near my world.
Speaker 3: With the evolution of technology at the moment, we're just
Speaker 3: seeing such an advance in what's available. Even since the
Speaker 3: experience that you've described, technology has moved incredibly quickly, and
Speaker 3: images that these men in these networks were using and
Speaker 3: taking hours to alter now takes minutes. And there's newdify
Speaker 3: apps that produce fake moods and moments. Can you imagine
Speaker 3: your son scenario but with today's technological ease of creating
Speaker 3: that fake porn? How do you think that would have
Speaker 3: played out? And also how troubling do you think that
Speaker 3: this technology is just so easily available to young men
Speaker 3: all around the world right now?
Speaker 4: So I think either these sites need to not exist,
Speaker 4: or if they do exist, so we need to restrict excess.
Speaker 4: And I think parents have to be able to do that.
Speaker 4: In at the moment, you can't because there's this whole
Speaker 4: kind of ethos about, oh, we're training and teaching our
Speaker 4: young people to make good choices, and so you should
Speaker 4: stand back and let them make good choices. I just
Speaker 4: think that's utter rubbish because they can't. They have no idea,
Speaker 4: and they don't listen to the appearance or to anybody,
Speaker 4: So you're not going to make good choices. We can't
Speaker 4: just step back because too many of them are falling
Speaker 4: into this abyss.
Speaker 3: It's interesting you talk about restrictions because there's a real
Speaker 3: range of parenting philosophy over how to protect young people
Speaker 3: from dangers online. And on one side you have parents
Speaker 3: who advocate for withholding devices completely. Then you've got others
Speaker 3: who are making rules like okay in communal areas the
Speaker 3: living room, but not the bedroom. And then on the
Speaker 3: other end have parents who say tech is going to
Speaker 3: be here forever. Now, you can't stop children from using it,
Speaker 3: but what we can do is just talk to them
Speaker 3: about it. Where do you come down in that spectrum?
Speaker 4: I definitely like just having a rule around those bedrooms.
Speaker 4: Do not allow teenagers to set up their bedrooms as
Speaker 4: a fortress where no one can see in, no one
Speaker 4: can come in, and they sort of develop an arrogant
Speaker 4: attitude of saying that their parents don't even have the
Speaker 4: right to know what's happening in there. I think that's
Speaker 4: a real danger zone. To me, that is one thing
Speaker 4: that I could have actually controlled that better, but I
Speaker 4: would have had to fight about It wouldn't have been easy.
Speaker 4: So I think parents are going to have to be
Speaker 4: very strong about about this, and there's going to be
Speaker 4: a lot of pushback, so I don't think there's going
Speaker 4: to be I don't have any hope that there's going
Speaker 4: to be a quick or fast fix for it. I
Speaker 4: think we have to really raise awareness at the moment,
Speaker 4: really really raise awareness to a lot of parents, to
Speaker 4: a lot of community leaders, and anyone involved in supporting
Speaker 4: youth in any way.
Speaker 3: Great, Well, it's so appreciate you being so candid and
Speaker 3: sharing that, and I think a lot of people will
Speaker 3: find it incredibly enlightening and helpful.
Speaker 4: So thank you from me as well. I really am
Speaker 4: so happy, i will burst into tears. So you know,
Speaker 4: I've had the world on my shoulders with dealing with this,
Speaker 4: and you know, I'm extremely grateful to take this opportunity
Speaker 4: to tell it how it is because I think it's
Speaker 4: such a problem.
Speaker 5: After the break, obviously, the second step after calling the school,
Speaker 5: it's calling your lawyer to find out, you know, whither
Speaker 5: are your rates? So we've been informed or no regulations,
Speaker 5: no legislation globally at that point. So as soon as
Speaker 5: Francisca came back the day off, she told me, Mom,
Speaker 5: I want a law I need you to help me
Speaker 5: to find a law.
Speaker 1: Of course, parents of young women have also been struggling,
Speaker 1: struggling to figure out how to prevent their daughters from
Speaker 1: falling victim to deep fake pornography and struggling with how
Speaker 1: to adequately protect them from the dangers of the digital world.
Speaker 1: We spoke to one mother, Derota Manny, from New Jersey,
Speaker 1: whose daughter was deep fated while she was a fourteen
Speaker 1: year old at Westfield High School, and she decided to
Speaker 1: fight back.
Speaker 5: Francesca has been confirmed to be one of many AA
Speaker 5: victims of deep fake pornography at Westfield High School in
Speaker 5: New Jersey, and ever since we have been advocating for
Speaker 5: regulation and legislation and just AI authority in general.
Speaker 1: De Rooda Manny and her daughter were just in Washington,
Speaker 1: DC in the Rose Garden of the White House where
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump signed the Take It Down Act.
Speaker 2: With us are several other brave Americans whose lives were
Speaker 2: rocked by online harassment, including Francesca Manny.
Speaker 1: De Oda Manny describes herself as an entrepreneur, an educator,
Speaker 1: and now an advocate for deep fake pawn survivors. What
Speaker 1: she's not, she says, is someone who was ever looking
Speaker 1: to get tangled up in politics.
Speaker 5: We live very comfortable life, surrounded by two dogs, two cards.
Speaker 5: We go for walks, we travel a lot, we hike,
Speaker 5: we kayak. We don't need to be in CNN, or
Speaker 5: in New York Times or god knows where else. This
Speaker 5: is not our prerogative, So that spitlight was put on
Speaker 5: us without our consent and without our knowledge.
Speaker 1: Deeroda says that in October twenty twenty three, when Francisca
Speaker 1: was a sophomore, she learned that deep fake porn images
Speaker 1: of her were being sheered among her male classmates on Snapchat.
Speaker 1: Francisca was one of several girls at her school who
Speaker 1: were targeted. At first, Deoda says this came as a
Speaker 1: shock for her daughter, but that quickly turned to anger.
Speaker 5: So, you know, immediately when she found out, she texted me,
Speaker 5: then she called me, and I know everybody expected she
Speaker 5: would be crying. No, she was just shocked. Multiple of
Speaker 5: girls crying on the hallways. I mean, it was a
Speaker 5: havoc during that time in the high school, and some
Speaker 5: boys were pointing at them and making fun of and
Speaker 5: that's when she stopped and she said, you know, I
Speaker 5: shouldn't be crying. I should be mad. There's nothing to
Speaker 5: be said about. I should be mad about what has
Speaker 5: happened to us girls.
Speaker 1: De Roda was mad too, once she fully understood the
Speaker 1: gravity of what had happened when she answered that first
Speaker 1: call from her daughter that day. She'd heard about deep fakes,
Speaker 1: but only in the political realm. She knew that sometimes CEOs,
Speaker 1: lawmakers or celebrities had been targeted, but high school girls
Speaker 1: being undressed with AI never And.
Speaker 5: When I said, can you please explain it to me?
Speaker 5: What does that mean? She said, Well, there's a technology
Speaker 5: when you can just undress girls, so you can take
Speaker 5: any picture, and with a click of a button, sometimes free,
Speaker 5: sometimes for nine niner cents, sometimes for five dollars, depending
Speaker 5: on the side, you will be able to undress that woman, girl, boy, anyone.
Speaker 1: I mean, that sounds like a nightmare scenario for any parent.
Speaker 1: And Deeroda, what did you decide to do next as
Speaker 1: a mother, as a parent, what did you do?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 5: When Francisca came back home that evening, she has been
Speaker 5: pissed because her school suggests that there's nothing they can
Speaker 5: do to the perpetrators, she said, well, what about the
Speaker 5: code of conduct? You have it? They said, well, but
Speaker 5: they're not AI lost, so we can't really apply it.
Speaker 1: The school did have a harassment, intimidation and anti bullying
Speaker 1: policy that applied to technology, but Deoda says it was outdated,
Speaker 1: to say the least.
Speaker 5: When Francisca brought it home, she said, look, mom, they're
Speaker 5: actually referring pagers and what was it with Alice Wachman.
Speaker 5: She's like, what is a pager? What is it a Wakman?
Speaker 1: No one in authority seemed to have the right playbook
Speaker 1: to respond to what had happened at Francesca's school.
Speaker 5: Obviously, shore with a new cord war that there would
Speaker 5: be one day suspension for one boy and that's it,
Speaker 5: and that the school is offering counseling. So Francisca says,
Speaker 5: I don't need your counseling. What I need is an accountability.
Speaker 5: Their answer was there's really not much we can do
Speaker 5: because there are no laws.
Speaker 1: Did you feel at this point that you, you Da,
Speaker 1: the other young woman who have been targeted in this case,
Speaker 1: had been kind of failed in some way one.
Speaker 5: Hundred percent failed, disappointed, offended. It's a very strong message
Speaker 5: that we're sending to the female community in our high
Speaker 5: school that basically says, you know you are a girl.
Speaker 5: At some point you will wear a victim's badge, so
Speaker 5: go for counseling. Well, screw that. Yes, this happens, and
Speaker 5: it's our job to learn how to protect our image.
Speaker 5: But it's also our job to point out that certain
Speaker 5: behaviors are unacceptable and should not be cultivated, especially in
Speaker 5: the place a thief a school should be.
Speaker 1: We reached out to Westfield High School, and the school
Speaker 1: said that it can't comment on individual student matters or
Speaker 1: disciplinary actions. In a statement, the school's superintendent, Raymond Gonzales,
Speaker 1: said the incident took place outside of the school year,
Speaker 1: but that the administration started investigating immediately in coordination with
Speaker 1: local police. It also provided counseling support to the victims,
Speaker 1: and it revised its policies to include the use of
Speaker 1: AI and the definition of cyber bullying, and updated its
Speaker 1: code of conduct to better address emerging digital issues. And
Speaker 1: what about for you as a parent, as a mum
Speaker 1: who watches your teenaged daughter go through this.
Speaker 5: You know, it's interesting. I've been asked this question over
Speaker 5: and over and I always want to respond with, well,
Speaker 5: how do you think it makes me feel? So I'm
Speaker 5: going to leave it at that. But what I'm going
Speaker 5: to say instead is instead of constantly asking any victim
Speaker 5: of any kind of crime of how did it make
Speaker 5: them feel, we should start asking the important questions. One
Speaker 5: is why is this happening? Two is what can we
Speaker 5: do to fix it? There's also the question of what
Speaker 5: are the consequences of those images being showed?
Speaker 1: Consequences like a college recruiter googling a prospective student and
Speaker 1: stumbling across what looks like real life nudes online, or
Speaker 1: a future boss or a future boyfriend, or really anyone
Speaker 1: for that matter. De Rodas says she grew increasingly frustrated
Speaker 1: at people in positions of power telling her not to
Speaker 1: worry about the deep fake pornographic images of her daughter
Speaker 1: because they're not real. To her, the problem was that
Speaker 1: deep fakes looked real. It felt like a real crime,
Speaker 1: even if it only occurred in the online world, and
Speaker 1: even if the offline world hadn't created the laws to
Speaker 1: criminalize it. Yet, can you talk about your own sense
Speaker 1: of realization that this lack of any kind of regulation
Speaker 1: or legislation to try and prevent this, that this wasn't
Speaker 1: just a New Jersey issue. Your your realization that this
Speaker 1: really was a national and actually a global issue.
Speaker 5: Yes, So the day of the incident, we already figured
Speaker 5: it out what is wrong because obviously the second step
Speaker 5: after calling the school, it's calling your lawyer to find out,
Speaker 5: you know, what.
Speaker 4: Are your rights.
Speaker 5: So we've been in formed of exactly the same word.
Speaker 5: There are no regulations, no legislation globally at that point.
Speaker 5: So as soon as Francesca came back the day off,
Speaker 5: she told me, Mom, I won a law. I need
Speaker 5: you to help me to find the law. So that
Speaker 5: set us into motion for advocacy. And I did tell her,
Speaker 5: you know, I was slightly reluctant of how much of
Speaker 5: her involvement I would like to see in this advocacy.
Speaker 5: I said, you know, you are fourteen. You don't know
Speaker 5: how people will react if you go full force out
Speaker 5: there like you usually do. She's a fencer, she's been
Speaker 5: fencing since she was six. We just came back from
Speaker 5: a Junior Olympics, so she has that kind of focus
Speaker 5: when she wants something. I said, but gan to be prepared.
Speaker 5: Some people are going to stay on your side and
Speaker 5: some people will be really against you. She says, I
Speaker 5: don't care. I know I'm right. People will think what
Speaker 5: they want to think. I know what I want.
Speaker 1: Franchisca and Rhoda started talking to a lot of lawmakers.
Speaker 1: One big victory for them came in early April.
Speaker 6: Today I stand before you as the happiest sixteen year
Speaker 6: old girl, not because the journey has been smooth, but
Speaker 6: because at fourteen, I chose not to wear a victim's badge. Instead,
Speaker 6: I decided to fight for my rights and pursue the
Speaker 6: justice so many cold impossible.
Speaker 1: That's Francisca. She's introducing New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy at
Speaker 1: an event in Newark where he signed a state deep
Speaker 1: fake law that she advocated for.
Speaker 2: Let me again begin by thanking Francesca money for her
Speaker 2: incredibly powerful words, for your bravery and for your advocacy.
Speaker 2: We would not be here today without you.
Speaker 1: Then came the signing of the Federal Take It Down
Speaker 1: Act in Washington, DC. How do you feel about the
Speaker 1: legislation that has been passed.
Speaker 5: I think it's a great step forward. It's a beginning. Unfortunately,
Speaker 5: or fortunately, AI technology it's so complex and multifast said
Speaker 5: and so fast piece that we will have to try
Speaker 5: to catch up with them in terms of legisla as well.
Speaker 5: So we need to start somewhere and then we need
Speaker 5: to continue bettering what's already in the legislative realm. That
Speaker 5: being said, I think it's also very important to point
Speaker 5: out Francisca has been nominated part of THAI one hundred
Speaker 5: AI Most Influential Group last wire, So we've been connected
Speaker 5: with one of the most amazing individuals in AI realm
Speaker 5: that are advancing climate control and education and research and medicine,
Speaker 5: you name it, and that really open our eyes. So
Speaker 5: now we strongly believe that conversation about AI cannot be
Speaker 5: one sided. It's a holistic conversation that should include deep
Speaker 5: fakes and ethics and legislations, but at the same time
Speaker 5: we should simultaneously educate about the great possibilities that AI
Speaker 5: provide as a tool of an advancement in their future.
Speaker 1: For der Rote and Francisca, this year's long advocacy crusade
Speaker 1: isn't about vengeance against teenage boys. Some parents from Westfield
Speaker 1: High School called for the police to press charges against
Speaker 1: the male students who created and shared the deep fake images,
Speaker 1: but for this mother, daughter Joo, it was about more
Speaker 1: than that.
Speaker 5: Vengeance is not something we're looking for. We were looking
Speaker 5: for simple This is wrong. You're worth enough to fight
Speaker 5: for and certain things will not be tolerated. So I
Speaker 5: think that is extremely important to talk off. We should
Speaker 5: educate our boys, because unfortunate, it's mostly boys of how
Speaker 5: not to misuse this technology instead of educating our girls
Speaker 5: of how to protect their image. If we want this
Speaker 5: to change and truly instigate meaningful progress, we will have
Speaker 5: to start asking where are the boys.
Speaker 1: That's a great point and something we did delve into
Speaker 1: in our podcast series is often this conversation stems around
Speaker 1: the impact on the young woman, the victims, but there's
Speaker 1: a whole nother realm to this, which is what is
Speaker 1: going on with young men. I wonder what would you
Speaker 1: share to the parents of young boys to try and
Speaker 1: prevent this from happening at the source, to try and
Speaker 1: guide your kids to not create deep fakes.
Speaker 5: That's such a good question. I would say, talk to
Speaker 5: your boys. Yes, there are ethics in place, and there
Speaker 5: should be certain ways that we use technology in general,
Speaker 5: and we should do the right thing. This is the
Speaker 5: wrong thing. But at the same time, do tell them
Speaker 5: that it's a criminal offense, right now I know the
Speaker 5: law that we just signed with Governor Murphy provides up
Speaker 5: to five years of punishment in prison, which is huge.
Speaker 5: Taken down, it's two to three years. Still, you know,
Speaker 5: if you want choose to educate your children because it's
Speaker 5: the right thing, then teach them how to protect themselves
Speaker 5: from ending up in jail.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So rather than the conversation being you will upset
Speaker 1: a friend and hurt your female friends if you do this,
Speaker 1: it's you could be imprisoned for this. And what about
Speaker 1: advice that you may have for parents who are watching
Speaker 1: their children go through this.
Speaker 5: Support your child. Know that there are tools like take
Speaker 5: it Down that will allow you to take the image
Speaker 5: immediately down from any website. Know your last but most importantly,
Speaker 5: understand that there's no right and there's no wrong in
Speaker 5: the way how you should handle the situation. Every child
Speaker 5: is different, every family is different, every incident is different.
Speaker 1: I love that you started this conversation talking about how
Speaker 1: your daughter wanted a law and that after this happened.
Speaker 1: The day she found out about this incident, she came
Speaker 1: to you and said, I want a law, mom, And
Speaker 1: she got it, Yes she did. This episode is hosted
Speaker 1: and reported by Margie Murphy and me Olivia Carvell. Jeff
Speaker 1: Grocott produced this episode and Caitlin Kenney edited. Sound designed
Speaker 1: by Blake Maples, original composition by Steve Bone thanks to
Speaker 1: Gilda Decali, Robert Friedman and Angel Rascio. Sage Bowman is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Levettown is a production of Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts.