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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is reintroducing her bill to provide civil recourse for survivors of nonconsensual sexually-explicit deepfakes.
Ocasio-Cortez is co-leading the bicameral bill with Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Fla.), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act was originally introduced last year and unanimously passed the Senate but did not make it to a vote at the House of Representatives. The bipartisan legislation currently has nine co-sponsors and will be reintroduced today in both the Senate and House.
The legislation amends the Violence Against Women Act so that survivors can sue those who produce, distribute, or receive the deepfake pornography, if they knew the victim did not consent to those images. Deepfakes can be pictures or videos that have been manipulated by technology — for example, through image software like Photoshop or artificial intelligence. The rise of easy-to-use AI-generated technology has made it easier than ever to create fake images that are extremely difficult to distinguish from reality.
“We are reintroducing the DEFIANCE Act to grant survivors and victims of nonconsensual deepfake pornography the legal right to pursue justice,” Ocasio-Cortez says in a statement. “I am proud to lead this legislation with Representative Lee, and Senators Durbin and Graham to provide victims with the federal protections they deserve.”
On Monday, President Donald Trump signed into law the Take It Down Act, which is the first federal law to criminalize the publication of both authentic and AI-generated nonconsensual sexually explicit images or videos. The people or platforms publishing the images can face criminal penalties. Ocasio-Cortez and the co-leads say that the DEFIANCE Act builds on the progress made by the passage of Take It Down. They see it as a complement to the Take It Down Act, one that focuses on giving survivors a civil recourse.
The legislators and their teams spoke to multiple deepfake abuse survivor organizations while working on the bill. What they heard from survivors was that sometimes people want a civil right of action rather than going through the criminal justice system, so the DEFIANCE Act would provide a way for victims to have multiple pathways toward justice.
“By introducing the DEFIANCE Act, we’re giving power back to the victims; cracking down on the production, receipt, distribution, and possession of ‘deepfake’ images; and holding those responsible for the images accountable,” Durbin says in the press release.
Last year, Ocasio-Cortez sat down with Rolling Stone to talk about her experience as a survivor of deepfake AI abuse. “There’s a shock to seeing images of yourself that someone could think are real,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It’s not as imaginary as people want to make it seem. It parallels the same exact intention of physical rape and sexual assault, [which] is about power, domination, and humiliation. Deepfakes are absolutely a way of digitizing violent humiliation against other people.”
Omny Miranda Martone, founder and CEO of the Sexual Violence Prevention Association, is one of the survivors who worked with Ocasio-Cortez and Lee’s teams as they were drafting the legislation.
“I know how hard it is to speak out,” Martone tells Rolling Stone. “I was targeted with several deepfake pornography attacks. Disgusting violating images of ‘me’ were shared on social media and emailed to my organization in an attempt to silence my advocacy. As a victim, I deeply appreciate Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Lee’s strength and bravery to take action and speak out.”
