A high school's deepfake porn scandal is pushing US lawmakers into action

Within 24 hours of learning about the photos, Francesca was writing letters to four area lawmakers, sharing her story and asking them to take action. Three of them quickly responded: US Representative Joe Morelle of New York, US Representative Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey, and New Jersey state senator Jon Bramnick. In the past few weeks, her advocacy has already fueled new legislative momentum to regulate nonconsensual deepfake pornography in the US. "I just realized that day [that] I need to speak out, because I really think this isn't okay," Francesca told me in a phone call this week. "This is such a new technology that people don't really know about and don't really know how to protect themselves against."