Podcast: Deepfake Technology and A.I. in Sexual Exploitation

“Children being the targets of this deepfake technology is our worst nightmare.”
 

NCOSE Senior Vice Presidents Haley McNamara and Dani Pinter discuss the current state of artificial intelligence and "deepfake" technology in the realm of sexual exploitation.

Overwhelmingly, these tools are used for pornographic material, and 10% of teenagers have reported being aware of deepfake pornography depicting someone they know. 

Haley and Dani also dig into how this leads to desensitization towards sexualizing children and overwhelming law enforcement.

📣ACTION: Urge Apple and Google to have better policies for A.I. apps!

The Law Standing in the Way of Justice for Sexual Abuse Survivors

At just 11 years old, Jane was placed in a chatroom with a predator by Omegle. She was threatened, exploited and abused despite pleas for it to stop.

John was 15 and downloaded what he thought was a safe dating app, only for it to become the connection point between predators who raped him.

Mary was 12. A convicted predator used Snapchat to groom her into producing exploitive images through the app, and even traveled to her home. Snapchat failed to detect or remove the illegal material, which could have prevented her further abuse.

Though their names are pseudonyms, these are real child abuse survivors who have sought justice for the crimes perpetrated against them. But none of them have received justice because of one law: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

📣ACTION: Urge Congress to Repeal Section 230!

The Guardian: 'A man approached him': parents describe their children's Roblox problems

David, a 46-year-old father from Calgary, Canada, initially did not see a problem when his 10-year-old son started to play on Roblox, the platform of user-generated games and virtual environments that has exploded in popularity in recent years, particularly among younger gamers.

“We saw it as a way for him to maintain a level of social interaction during the Covid lockdowns,” David said, assuming his son was using the platform’s chat function only to speak with friends he knew personally.

After a while, his parents found him speaking to someone in his room in the middle of the night.

“We discovered that a man from India had approached him on Roblox and coached him to bypass our internet security controls,” David said. “This person then persuaded my son to take compromising nude images and videos of himself and send them via our Google Mini." 

📣ACTION: Demand Roblox Prioritize Child Safety!

Podcast: Are Pornography Algorithms Creating Abusers? 

Haley McNamara and Dani Pinter discuss The Guardian article: “‘I didn’t start out wanting to see kids’: are porn algorithms feeding a generation of paedophiles – or creating one?”

"It was disturbing, but it also wasn't that shocking ... Multiple times in this article, they have law enforcement saying the phrase, essentially, 'There is an unambiguous link between pornography use and this ultimate child pornography use, CSAM use, child sexual abuse material use.' And we've heard that time and time again here from experts in the United States." 

📣ACTION: Call on Congress to Protect Children from Online Pornography Exposure!

Sincerely,