Fight for the Future endorses the DEFIANCE Act

The DEFIANCE Act, a bipartisan and bicameral bill, is a smart expansion of an existing law so that it will support victims of AI-generated non-consensual intimate images (NCII) in suing their abusers. Currently, the law doesn’t specifically allow suits for AI-generated imagery creation and distribution. This clarifies the law to make sure that victims of NCII are allowed to seek justice through the courts—making anyone who might try to leverage AI for abuse, intimidation, or other harms think twice.

A study shows that intimate imagery accounts for 96 percent of all deepfaked videos online – with 99 percent of the targeted individuals being women. The DEFIANCE Act will empower communities including women, children, LGBTQ+ folks, and activists to fight back against the negative social, emotional, and economic harm associated with NCII. 

Fight for the Future urges Congress to pass the DEFIANCE Act. It would create a well-thought-out tool that respects how the Internet actually works, the First Amendment, and the right to create better things with AI tools—while giving a big legal stick to victims of NCII.

The following statement can be attributed to Lia Holland (they/she), Campaigns & Communications Director at Fight for the Future: 

“We all have photos of us online by now—and deserve a big stick to hold if those photos are used without our consent to make intimate imagery. The DEFIANCE Act laser-focuses on the right things to do when it comes to AI: making abusers & abusive tech corporations think twice, empowering victims, and safeguarding the First Amendment and Section 230 to ensure that we don’t end up with a censorship regime that does more harm than good like we did with SESTA/FOSTA. 

Too often and for far too long, abusers have taken advantage of the lack of digital privacy safeguards to intimidate, harass, and destroy the lives of their victims. The DEFIANCE Act is a step in the right direction that Congress should take while building out a full suite of necessary protections like pushing forward with all speed on comprehensive federal data privacy legislation, putting teeth in President Biden’s AI executive order, and pushing back against all the abusive business practices of tech corporations. The situation with NCII today shows that until Congress takes action to create some long overdue standards for human rights online, these corporations will stop at nothing to make a quick buck off of exploiting us. Pass the DEFIANCE Act, and keep going.”

For more on Non-Consensual Intimate Content from Fight for the Future, read our blog post at https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2024-08-26-congress-shouldnt-pass-ai-protections-only-rich-people-can-use-and-ignore-the-rest-of-us/