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Subject:\[EXTERNAL\] Teen girls confront an epidemic of deepfake nudes in schools
Warning: This email originated from outside the City of Anaheim. Do not click links or open
attachments unless you recognize the sender and are expecting the message.
04-16-2024
(P.R.D.D.C.)
PARENTS FOR THE RIGHTS OF DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED CHILDREN
CRAIG A. DURFEY FOUNDER OF P.R.D.D.C.
U.S. HOUSE OF CONGRESS H2404 - HONORING CRAIG DURFEY FOR HIS FIGHT AGAINST AUTISM
... Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2003-03-27/pdf/CREC-2003-03-27.pdf
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To whom it may concern.
"Teens confront an epidemic of deepfake nudes in schools", and I think it might interest
you, too. You can read the full article here:
WESTFIELD, N.J. — Westfield Public Schools held a regular board meeting in late March
at the local high school, a red brick complex in Westfield, New Jersey, with a scoreboard
outside proudly welcoming visitors to the “Home of the Blue Devils” sports teams.
But it was not business as usual for Dorota Mani.
In October, some 10th grade girls at Westfield High School — including Mani’s 14-year-old
daughter, Francesca — alerted administrators that boys in their class had used artificial
intelligence software to fabricate sexually explicit images of them and were circulating
the faked pictures. Five months later, the Manis and other families say, the district has
done little to publicly address the doctored images or update school policies to hinder
exploitative AI use.
“It seems as though the Westfield High School administration and the district are
engaging in a master class of making this incident vanish into thin air,” Mani, the founder
of a local preschool, admonished board members during the meeting.
In a statement, the school district said it had opened an “immediate investigation” upon
learning about the incident, had immediately notified and consulted with police, and had
provided group counseling to the sophomore class.
“All school districts are grappling with the challenges and impact of artificial intelligence
and other technology available to students at any time and anywhere,” Raymond
González, superintendent of Westfield Public Schools, said in the statement.
Blindsided last year by the sudden popularity of AI-powered chatbots such as ChatGPT,
schools across the United States scurried to contain the text-generating bots in an effort
to forestall student cheating. Now a more alarming AI image-generating phenomenon is
shaking schools.
Boys in several states have used widely available “nudification” apps to pervert real,
identifiable photos of their clothed female classmates, shown attending events including
school proms, into graphic, convincing-looking images of the girls with exposed AI-
generated breasts and genitalia. In some cases, boys shared the faked images in the
school lunchroom, on the school bus or through group chats on platforms such as
Snapchat and Instagram, according to school and police reports.
Such digitally altered images — known as “deepfakes” or “deepnudes” — can have
devastating consequences. Child sexual exploitation experts say the use of
nonconsensual, AI-generated images to harass, humiliate and bully young women can
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harm their mental health, reputations and physical safety as well as pose risks to their
college and career prospects. Last month, the FBI warned that it is illegal to distribute
computer-generated child sexual abuse material, including realistic-looking AI-generated
images of identifiable minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.
Yet the student use of exploitative AI apps in schools is so new that some districts seem
less prepared to address it than others. That can make safeguards precarious for
students.
“This phenomenon has come on very suddenly and may be catching a lot of school
districts unprepared and unsure what to do,” said Riana Pfefferkorn, a research scholar
at the Stanford Internet Observatory, who writes about legal issues related to computer-
generated child sexual abuse imagery.
At Issaquah High School near Seattle last fall, a police detective investigating
complaints from parents about explicit AI-generated images of their 14- and 15-year-old
daughters asked an assistant principal why the school had not reported the incident to
police, according to a report from the Issaquah Police Department. The school official
then asked “what was she supposed to report,” the police document said, prompting the
detective to inform her that schools are required by law to report sexual abuse, including
possible child sexual abuse material. The school subsequently reported the incident to
Child Protective Services, the police report said. (The New York Times obtained the
police report through a public-records request.)
In a statement, the Issaquah School District said it had talked with students, families
and police as part of its investigation into the deepfakes. The district also “shared our
empathy,” the statement said, and provided support to students who were affected.
The statement added that the district had reported the “fake, artificial-intelligence-
generated images to Child Protective Services out of an abundance of caution,” noting
that “per our legal team, we are not required to report fake images to the police.”
RELATED
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victimized Taylor Swift
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At Beverly Vista Middle School in Beverly Hills, California, administrators contacted
police in February after learning that five boys had created and shared AI-generated
explicit images of female classmates. Two weeks later, the school board approved the
expulsion of five students, according to district documents. (The district said California’s
education code prohibited it from confirming whether the expelled students were the
students who had manufactured the images.)
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Michael Bregy, superintendent of the Beverly Hills Unified School District, said he and
other school leaders wanted to set a national precedent that schools must not permit
pupils to create and circulate sexually explicit images of their peers.
“That’s extreme bullying when it comes to schools,” Bregy said, noting that the explicit
images were “disturbing and violative” to girls and their families. “It’s something we will
absolutely not tolerate here.”
Schools in the small, affluent communities of Beverly Hills and Westfield were among the
first to publicly acknowledge deepfake incidents. The details of the cases — described in
district communications with parents, school board meetings, legislative hearings and
court filings — illustrate the variability of school responses.
The Westfield incident began last summer when a male high school student asked to
friend a 15-year-old female classmate on Instagram who had a private account,
according to a lawsuit against the boy and his parents brought by the young woman and
her family. (The Manis said they are not involved with the lawsuit.)
After she accepted the request, the male student copied photos of her and several other
female schoolmates from their social media accounts, court documents say. Then he
used an AI app to fabricate sexually explicit, “fully identifiable” images of the girls and
shared them with schoolmates via a Snapchat group, court documents say.
Westfield High began to investigate in late October. While administrators quietly took
some boys aside to question them, Francesca Mani said, they called her and other 10th-
grade girls who had been subjected to the deepfakes to the school office by announcing
their names over the school intercom.
That week, Mary Asfendis, principal of Westfield High, sent an email to parents alerting
them to “a situation that resulted in widespread misinformation.” The email went on to
describe the deepfakes as a “very serious incident.” It also said that, despite student
concern about possible image-sharing, the school believed that “any created images
have been deleted and are not being circulated.”
Dorota Mani said Westfield administrators had told her that the district suspended the
male student accused of fabricating the images for one or two days.
Soon after, she and her daughter began publicly speaking out about the incident, urging
school districts, state lawmakers and Congress to enact laws and policies specifically
prohibiting explicit deepfakes.
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“We have to start updating our school policy,” Francesca Mani, now 15, said in a recent
interview. “Because if the school had AI policies, then students like me would have been
protected.”
Parents including Dorota Mani also lodged harassment complaints with Westfield High
last fall over the explicit images. During the March meeting, however, Mani told school
board members that the high school had yet to provide parents with an official report on
the incident.
Westfield Public Schools said it could not comment on any disciplinary actions for
reasons of student confidentiality. In a statement, González, the superintendent, said the
district was strengthening its efforts “by educating our students and establishing clear
guidelines to ensure that these new technologies are used responsibly.”
We need your support Beverly Hills schools have taken a stauncher public stance.
When administrators learned in February that eighth grade boys at Beverly Vista Middle
School had created explicit images of 12- and 13-year-old female classmates, they
quickly sent a message — subject line: “Appalling Misuse of Artificial Intelligence” — to
all district parents, staff, and middle and high school students. The message urged
community members to share information with the school to help ensure that students’
“disturbing and inappropriate” use of AI “stops immediately.”
It also warned that the district was prepared to institute severe punishment. “Any
student found to be creating, disseminating, or in possession of AI-generated images of
this nature will face disciplinary actions,” including a recommendation for expulsion, the
message said.
Bregy, the superintendent, said schools and lawmakers needed to act quickly because
the abuse of AI was making students feel unsafe in schools.
“You hear a lot about physical safety in schools,” he said. “But what you’re not hearing
about is this invasion of students’ personal, emotional safety.”
This story was originally published at nytimes.com. Read it here.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/teen-girls-confront-an-epidemic-of-
deepfake-nudes-in-schools/
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