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[This talk contains mature content]

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Rana Ayyub is a journalist in India

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whose work has exposed
government corruption

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and human rights violations.

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And over the years,

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she's gotten used to vitriol
and controversy around her work.

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But none of it could have prepared her
for what she faced in April 2018.

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She was sitting in a café with a friend
when she first saw it:

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a two-minute, 20-second video
of her engaged in a sex act.

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And she couldn't believe her eyes.

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She had never made a sex video.

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But unfortunately, thousands
upon thousands of people

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would believe it was her.

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I interviewed Ms. Ayyub
about three months ago,

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in connection with my book
on sexual privacy.

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I'm a law professor, lawyer
and civil rights advocate.

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So it's incredibly frustrating
knowing that right now,

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law could do very little to help her.

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And as we talked,

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she explained that she should have seen
the fake sex video coming.

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She said, "After all, sex is so often used
to demean and to shame women,

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especially minority women,

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and especially minority women
who dare to challenge powerful men,"

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as she had in her work.

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The fake sex video went viral in 48 hours.

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All of her online accounts were flooded
with screenshots of the video,

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with graphic rape and death threats

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and with slurs about her Muslim faith.

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Online posts suggested that
she was "available" for sex.

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And she was doxed,

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which means that her home address
and her cell phone number

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were spread across the internet.

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The video was shared
more than 40,000 times.

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Now, when someone is targeted
with this kind of cybermob attack,

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the harm is profound.

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Rana Ayyub's life was turned upside down.

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For weeks, she could hardly eat or speak.

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She stopped writing and closed
all of her social media accounts,

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which is, you know, a tough thing to do
when you're a journalist.

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And she was afraid to go outside
her family's home.

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What if the posters
made good on their threats?

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The UN Council on Human Rights
confirmed that she wasn't being crazy.

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It issued a public statement saying
that they were worried about her safety.

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What Rana Ayyub faced was a deepfake:

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machine-learning technology

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that manipulates or fabricates
audio and video recordings

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to show people doing and saying things

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that they never did or said.

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Deepfakes appear authentic
and realistic, but they're not;

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they're total falsehoods.

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Although the technology
is still developing in its sophistication,

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it is widely available.

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Now, the most recent attention
to deepfakes arose,

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as so many things do online,

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with pornography.

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In early 2018,

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someone posted a tool on Reddit

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to allow users to insert faces
into porn videos.

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And what followed was a cascade
of fake porn videos

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featuring people's favorite
female celebrities.

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And today, you can go on YouTube
and pull up countless tutorials

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with step-by-step instructions

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on how to make a deepfake
on your desktop application.

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And soon we may be even able
to make them on our cell phones.

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Now, it's the interaction
of some of our most basic human frailties

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and network tools

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that can turn deepfakes into weapons.

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So let me explain.

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As human beings, we have
a visceral reaction to audio and video.

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We believe they're true,

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on the notion that
of course you can believe

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what your eyes and ears are telling you.

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And it's that mechanism

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that might undermine our shared
sense of reality.

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Although we believe deepfakes
to be true, they're not.

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And we're attracted
to the salacious, the provocative.

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We tend to believe
and to share information

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that's negative and novel.

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And researchers have found that online
hoaxes spread 10 times faster

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than accurate stories.

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Now, we're also drawn to information

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that aligns with our viewpoints.

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Psychologists call that tendency
"confirmation bias."

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And social media platforms
supercharge that tendency,

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by allowing us to instantly
and widely share information

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that accords with our viewpoints.

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Now, deepfakes have the potential to cause
grave individual and societal harm.

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So, imagine a deepfake

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that shows American soldiers
in Afganistan burning a Koran.

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You can imagine that that deepfake
would provoke violence

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against those soldiers.

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And what if the very next day

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there's another deepfake that drops,

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that shows a well-known imam
based in London

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praising the attack on those soldiers?

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We might see violence and civil unrest,

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not only in Afganistan
and the United Kingdom,

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but across the globe.

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And you might say to me,

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"Come on, Danielle, that's far-fetched."

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But it's not.

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We've seen falsehoods spread

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on WhatsApp and other
online message services

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lead to violence
against ethnic minorities.

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And that was just text --

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imagine if it were video.

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Now, deepfakes have the potential
to corrode the trust that we have

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in democratic institutions.

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So, imagine the night before an election.

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There's a deepfake showing
one of the major party candidates

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gravely sick.

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The deepfake could tip the election

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and shake our sense
that elections are legitimate.

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Imagine if the night before
an initial public offering

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of a major global bank,

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there was a deepfake
showing the bank's CEO

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drunkenly spouting conspiracy theories.

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The deepfake could tank the IPO,

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and worse, shake our sense
that financial markets are stable.

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So deepfakes can exploit and magnify
the deep distrust that we already have

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in politicians, business leaders
and other influential leaders.

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They find an audience
primed to believe them.

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And the pursuit of truth
is on the line as well.

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Technologists expect
that with advances in AI,

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soon it may be difficult if not impossible

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to tell the difference between
a real video and a fake one.

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So how can the truth emerge
in a deepfake-ridden marketplace of ideas?

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Will we just proceed along
the path of least resistance

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and believe what we want to believe,

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truth be damned?

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And not only might we believe the fakery,

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we might start disbelieving the truth.

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We've already seen people invoke
the phenomenon of deepfakes

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to cast doubt on real evidence
of their wrongdoing.

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We've heard politicians say of audio
of their disturbing comments,

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"Come on, that's fake news.

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You can't believe what your eyes
and ears are telling you."

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And it's that risk

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that professor Robert Chesney and I
call the "liar's dividend":

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the risk that liars will invoke deepfakes

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to escape accountability
for their wrongdoing.

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So we've got our work cut out for us,
there's no doubt about it.

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And we're going to need
a proactive solution

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from tech companies, from lawmakers,

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law enforcers and the media.

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And we're going to need
a healthy dose of societal resilience.

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So now, we're right now engaged
in a very public conversation

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about the responsibility
of tech companies.

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And my advice to social media platforms

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has been to change their terms of service
and community guidelines

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to ban deepfakes that cause harm.

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That determination,
that's going to require human judgment,

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and it's expensive.

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But we need human beings

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to look at the content
and context of a deepfake

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to figure out if it is
a harmful impersonation

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or instead, if it's valuable
satire, art or education.

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So now, what about the law?

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Law is our educator.

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It teaches us about
what's harmful and what's wrong.

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And it shapes behavior it deters
by punishing perpetrators

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and securing remedies for victims.

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Right now, law is not up to
the challenge of deepfakes.

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Across the globe,

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we lack well-tailored laws

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that would be designed to tackle
digital impersonations

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that invade sexual privacy,

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that damage reputations

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and that cause emotional distress.

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What happened to Rana Ayyub
is increasingly commonplace.

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Yet, when she went
to law enforcement in Delhi,

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she was told nothing could be done.

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And the sad truth is
that the same would be true

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in the United States and in Europe.

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So we have a legal vacuum
that needs to be filled.

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My colleague Dr. Mary Anne Franks and I
are working with US lawmakers

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to devise legislation that would ban
harmful digital impersonations

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that are tantamount to identity theft.

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And we've seen similar moves

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in Iceland, the UK and Australia.

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But of course, that's just a small piece
of the regulatory puzzle.

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Now, I know law is not a cure-all. Right?

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It's a blunt instrument.

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And we've got to use it wisely.

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It also has some practical impediments.

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You can't leverage law against people
you can't identify and find.

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And if a perpetrator lives
outside the country

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where a victim lives,

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then you may not be able to insist

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that the perpetrator
come into local courts

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to face justice.

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And so we're going to need
a coordinated international response.

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Education has to be part
of our response as well.

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Law enforcers are not
going to enforce laws

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they don't know about

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and proffer problems
they don't understand.

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In my research on cyberstalking,

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I found that law enforcement
lacked the training

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to understand the laws available to them

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and the problem of online abuse.

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And so often they told victims,

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"Just turn your computer off.
Ignore it. It'll go away."

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And we saw that in Rana Ayyub's case.

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She was told, "Come on,
you're making such a big deal about this.

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It's boys being boys."

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And so we need to pair new legislation
with efforts at training.

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And education has to be aimed
on the media as well.

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Journalists need educating
about the phenomenon of deepfakes

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so they don't amplify and spread them.

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And this is the part
where we're all involved.

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Each and every one of us needs educating.

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We click, we share, we like,
and we don't even think about it.

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We need to do better.

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We need far better radar for fakery.

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So as we're working
through these solutions,

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there's going to be
a lot of suffering to go around.

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Rana Ayyub is still wrestling
with the fallout.

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She still doesn't feel free
to express herself on- and offline.

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And as she told me,

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she still feels like there are thousands
of eyes on her naked body,

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even though, intellectually,
she knows it wasn't her body.

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And she has frequent panic attacks,

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especially when someone she doesn't know
tries to take her picture.

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"What if they're going to make
another deepfake?" she thinks to herself.

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And so for the sake of
individuals like Rana Ayyub

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and the sake of our democracy,

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we need to do something right now.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)