Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to create realistic but fabricated images, audio, or video of real people. They raise serious concerns about consent, fraud, election integrity, and nonconsensual pornography, prompting lawmakers to create new legal frameworks for victims to seek damages.
Deepfakes can destroy reputations, manipulate elections, and generate non-consensual intimate images — all without the target ever saying or doing anything. Courts are only beginning to develop legal tools; Congress passed the DEFIANCE Act in 2026 to let victims sue creators. The technology spreads faster than the law.
People think deepfakes are only a political problem — fake videos of candidates. The most common harm is non-consensual sexual deepfakes targeting private individuals, mostly women. Political deepfakes get more media coverage, but intimate image abuse is the dominant use case.
Deepfakes can destroy reputations, manipulate elections, and generate non-consensual intimate images — all without the target ever saying or doing anything. Courts are only beginning to develop legal tools; Congress passed the DEFIANCE Act in 2026 to let victims sue creators. The technology spreads faster than the law.
People think deepfakes are only a political problem — fake videos of candidates. The most common harm is non-consensual sexual deepfakes targeting private individuals, mostly women. Political deepfakes get more media coverage, but intimate image abuse is the dominant use case.