New York
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n When Elliston Berry, then 14 years old, discovered a classmate had made and shared a deepfake nude image of her, she didn\u2019t know where to turn for information on what had happened or how to get the photos removed from social media. Now, she\u2019s pushing to ensure no other young person has to feel the same way.\n <\/p>\n
\n Berry helped to create an online training course<\/a> to teach students, parents and school staff about non-consensual, explicit deepfake image abuse, in partnership with cybersecurity firm Adaptive Security and Pathos Consulting Group.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s an increasingly common<\/a> form of harassment, amid the proliferation of artificial intelligence tools that make creating sexualized deepfakes simple and widely available. Just this week, Elon Musk\u2019s xAI came under fire<\/a> after its AI chatbot Grok was repeatedly used to create nude or sexualized AI images of women and minors. (xAI has since limited<\/a> its image generation feature.)\n <\/p>\n \n One in eight US teens report personally knowing someone who has been targeted by nude deepfakes, according to research published last year<\/a> by the non-profit Thorn. That\u2019s despite the Take It Down Act<\/a> \u2014 which President Donald Trump signed into law last year, and for which Berry advocated \u2014 making it a crime to share nonconsensual, explicit images, real or computer-generated.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cOne of the situations that we ran into was a lack of awareness and a lack of education,\u201d Berry, now 16, told CNN of the leadership at the Texas high school where she was harassed. \u201cThey were more confused than we were, so they weren\u2019t able to offer any comfort, any protection to us. That\u2019s why this curriculum is so important \u2026 it focuses on the educators so they\u2019re able to help and protect if a victim were to come to them for a situation like this.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The online course takes about 17 minutes to complete and is designed for middle- to high school-aged students, as well as teachers and parents. It includes lessons on understanding and recognizing AI-generated deepfakes, deepfake sexual abuse and sextortion.\n <\/p>\n \n Sextortion<\/a>, a scheme where victims are deceived into sending online perpetrators explicit images and then blackmailed in exchange for money or additional graphic content, has affected thousands of teens in recent years and led to multiple suicide deaths<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n