How a New Bill Could Protect Against Deepfakes

A day before the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled CEOs from tech companies about internet child safety, bipartisan lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow victims to sue people who create and distribute sexually-explicit deepfakes under certain circumstances. The Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits, or DEFIANCE Act, allows victims to sue if those who created the deepfakes knew, or "recklessly disregarded" that the victim did not consent to its making. The federal bill, introduced on Tuesday, came nearly a week after deepfake pornographic images of Taylor Swift flooded X. The social media platform temporarily removed the ability to search for Swift's name on X after the explicit content was viewed tens of millions of times. Only ten states currently have criminal laws against this form of manipulated media files.