A law professor from Great Britain tells "Vreme" how her team fought to make deepfake pornography punishable by law. Where is Serbia?
Photos or videos of women without clothes, which are massively shared in groups via mobile phones, which are actually fake – could become a thing of the past.
At least in Great Britain. The government of this country has announced that a law will be adopted that provides that anyone who makes or shares "deepfake" pornography, that is, sexually explicit content created with the help of artificial intelligence, can receive up to two years in prison.
"This is a welcome step that recognizes the serious harm of this kind of sexual abuse," Claire McGinn, professor of law at the University of Durham, told Vreme.
McGinn was on the team of experts who fought for this law.
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"All forms of creating, sharing or threatening to share intimate images without consent can be devastating," she adds, warning that we must be aware that "they can be life-threatening" and even deadly.
This trend has not bypassed Serbia either, which currently does not have similar legal regulations.
"In Serbia, the so-called 'bots for removing clothes' have become popular in Telegram groups," investigative journalist Anđela Milivojević told Vreme. "The research I did last year for BIRN showed that dozens of men shared pictures of 'naked women' from various parts of Serbia."
What will the British punish?
In 2015, publishing intimate photos or videos without consent was criminalized in Great Britain.
However, the existing law does not cover the use of fake images, and this problem has increased in recent years.
Data from the UK Victim Support Service Revenge Porn Helpline show that the abuse of dipfake images has increased by more than 400 percent since 2017.
"The most popular site for 'deepfake' pornography, which is usually created and shared without consent, has around 17 million visits per month," explains Professor Claire McGinn. "Content almost exclusively targets women".
There has also been a huge increase in "download apps".
Under the new regulations, which will be included in the Crime and Policing Bill to be sent to Parliament, perpetrators will be prosecuted and face charges for creating and sharing such images.
The British example is not in doubt. And America is considering inserting into federal law the possibility that victims have the right to sue violators for damages, McGinn says. Similar laws providing penalties for "deepfaking" already exist in the Netherlands and Victoria, Australia.
"No one is safe"
"Very good news," comments Anđela Milivojević on the announcement of the British law.
"The misuse of artificial intelligence to create sexually explicit content has become so widespread that almost none of us are safe," she says.
"What's even scarier is that with just a few clicks, any image we post on social media can be turned into pornographic content."
Serbian law does not recognize, she adds, "the sharing of real intimate recordings or pictures without permission as a separate crime."
"The victims, who are mostly women, are left to their own devices to seek protection from digital violence that leaves long-term trauma through a long process of private lawsuits," says Milivojević, who spoke to women victims of the pornographic "dipfake" for BIRN.
In Serbia, this type of fake pornography is also used massively to take revenge on women who broke up with men or rejected them.
In Croatia, in 2021, the criminal offense of 'misuse of sexually explicit content' was introduced into the Criminal Code, while last year Montenegro introduced a special crime for the misuse of someone else's video, photograph, portrait, audio recording or file with sexually explicit content, according to to the text Milivojević published for BIRN.
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