Rep. AOC shares deepfake porn encounter experience, saying ‘It resurfaces trauma’
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently spoke about her traumatic experience of encountering AI-generated deepfake pornography of herself.
The Bronx democrat discovered the deepfake post on X (formerly Twitter) while scrolling through the platform in February during a meeting discussing legislation with her aides.
AOC spoke about how being a sexual assault survivor resurfaced trauma upon seeing those realistic visuals.
“There’s a shock to seeing images of yourself that someone could think are real,” Ocasio-Cortez told Rolling Stone. “As a survivor of physical sexual assault, it adds a level of dysregulation. It resurfaces trauma, while I’m trying to … in the middle of a f–king meeting.”
“There are certain images that don’t leave a person, they can’t leave a person,” she told the magazine, highlighting the difficulty for the human brain to distinguish distressing images seen on a phone from reality, even if they are known to be fake.
Ocasio-Cortez compared the harm caused by “digitizing violent humiliation” to physical rape and expressed concerns about its potential to lead to self-harm or suicide, especially among young people.
“Kids are going to kill themselves over this,” she warmed. “People are going to kill themselves over this.”
AOC is leading efforts to introduce the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act of 2024 in the House, aimed at facilitating legal action against publishers, distributors, and consumers of nonconsensual AI porn.
What do netizens have to say?
Users on X (formerly Twitter) commented on how no one deserves what happened to AOC, “No doubt. I imagine it would be traumatic for anyone to see themselves in such a manner.”
“I don’t think highly of AOC but deep faking people into porn is disgusting.”
While another user added, “No one deserves to be treated like that regardless of their politics.”
“I don’t like her, but nobody deserves that,” wrote someone else on the platform.