{"id":607871,"date":"2026-04-15T06:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/607871\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T06:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:15:09","slug":"landmark-plea-as-teen-admits-creating-or-altering-sexually-explicit-deepfakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/607871\/","title":{"rendered":"Landmark plea as teen admits creating or altering sexually explicit deepfakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first person in Australia to be charged under new deepfake laws has admitted his guilt in the Adelaide Magistrates Court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

William Hamish Yeates, 19, of Netherby, pleaded guilty to two counts of creating or altering sexual material without consent between October 2024 and February 2025.<\/p>\n

The federal offence was introduced in 2024 to combat the rise of deepfake pornography in Australia and carries a maximum penalty of seven years behind bars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A deepfake is an image or video in which a real person’s face or body has been edited using AI software to create a false depiction.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

William Yeates, right, did not comment as he left the Adelaide Magistrates Court alongside his lawyer, Tim McGrath. (ABC News: Eva Blandis)<\/p>\n

Yeates also pleaded guilty to two counts of using a carriage service in a harassing or offensive way.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old was initially charged with 20 offences<\/a>, but the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) withdrew those counts in lieu of the pleas to the four charges.<\/p>\n

The CDPP previously confirmed the case was the only one of its type it was prosecuting.<\/p>\n

Yeates did not comment on the development as he left court accompanied by his lawyer, Tim McGrath.<\/p>\n

The matter was committed to South Australia\u2019s District Court for a hearing next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first person in Australia to be charged under new deepfake laws has admitted his guilt in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[141408,27619,64,63,36708,254471,1105,12653,54920,87507,74853,32286,85,295673,252918],"class_list":{"0":"post-607871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-altered","9":"tag-artificial","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-deepfake","13":"tag-explicit","14":"tag-guilty","15":"tag-material","16":"tag-plea","17":"tag-porn","18":"tag-pornography","19":"tag-sexual","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-tim-mgrath","22":"tag-william-yeates"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}