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‘Deep fakes are old misogyny amplified by tech'

‘Deep fakes are old misogyny amplified by tech'

Channel 424-05-2025

The tech revolution is ushering in huge benefits, but it's also doing untold harm – with many women and children facing exploitation, abuse and worse online.
Last year, a Channel 4 News investigation discovered that more deep fake porn videos were created in 2023 than all previous years combined.
We found photos and videos of some four thousand people in the public eye, but ordinary women are most affected.
We speak to Laura Bates, who immersed herself in the deepest underbelly of society to discover the risks women face, for her book The New Age of Sexism.
And a warning: this report contains adult themes from the start.

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The rise of deep-fake porn in schools is a 'public health crisis', says expert
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The rise of deep-fake porn in schools is a 'public health crisis', says expert

Misogyny expert Laura Bates has deemed sexual violence in schools a 'national emergency', particularly due to the accessibility of deep-fake porn websites. So how can we protect young girls? Misogyny is rife in Britain's schools, and with the latest technology, it can manifest in vulgar ways that are extremely damaging to young girls. But expert Laura Bates, whose latest book delves into the dangers of AI and sexism, has issued a call-to-action against sexual violence in schools, which she has deemed a 'national emergency'. The founder of the Everyday Sexism Project and author of several books on modern misogyny, Laura Bates recently delved into the concerning ways that the newest AI technology is harming young women, particularly at school. She sat down with BBC journalist Samira Ahmed to discuss her latest book, The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny, at Hay Festival in Wales last week. ‌ She described sexism in schools as a 'public health crisis', warning of the ways in which deep-fake porn is the newest misogynistic threat to schoolgirls in the UK. ‌ Bates said: 'We have a crisis in schools. It is a national emergency." In her newest book, she explains how hundreds of free websites allow anyone to create false images of their peers, or anyone for that matter, completely naked, using only a single image of someone's face- which is easily accessible on most young peoples' social media profiles. These easily accessible, and often completely free AI-powered websites have the ability to seriously harm young girls, if schoolmates were to decide to create one of these explicit images and share it. And this AI-generated form of sexual abuse is already occurring in our schools, as well as throughout Europe, reports the Independent. Bates' research involved a 2023 case in the Spanish town of Almendralejo, where several girls aged between 11 and 17 found that AI-generated images of them naked had been circulating on social media, which had lasting and extremely damaging effects on them. ‌ The expert said at Hay Festival: 'In the years since [this incident], we've seen a significant number of these cases cropping up across schools in the UK. 'It is the next big sexual violence issue that is going to impact schools. It's just that we're not really talking about it yet.' ‌ What's most worrying about this new AI-powered threat to young girls is that there isn't much that can be done to prevent it from occurring, as pictures of our faces are widely available across social media. While it's possible to turn you or your children's accounts to private, this will not stop trusted classmates or friends from accessing their peers' pictures, which can be made falsely explicit at the touch of a button. Profile pictures are also widely viewable, even if an account is set to private. ‌ So, how can we protect young girls from being targeted by this high-tech manifestation of misogyny? Bates argues in her book that the issue lies within wider society, and policy makers and educators have a responsibility to tackle this problem from the root. She said: "This is a crisis; it is a public health crisis and it needs a public health programme. There has to be statutory guidance to give schools the powers to act on that, and yet it's something that we're not talking about." Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'.

The Left has fallen right into Jenrick's trap on fare-dodging
The Left has fallen right into Jenrick's trap on fare-dodging

Telegraph

time30-05-2025

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The Left has fallen right into Jenrick's trap on fare-dodging

Robert Jenrick knows how to grab headlines. More importantly, he knows exactly how to lead his critics down a blind alley from which they cannot escape. Yesterday the shadow justice secretary released a video of himself in the London Underground confronting those who had avoided paying their fare. The political point was hardly subtle: why should the rest of us pay for those who can't be bothered paying their way? Just as he must have hoped would happen, his vigilantism sparked a massive debate on social media, with users dividing along the traditional Right and Left lines: Jenrick was either a hero who was unafraid to tackle lawlessness on behalf of the majority, or a cynical villain who was at least in part responsible, while a government minister, for the reduction in police and Underground staff who might otherwise have been available to tackle the fare-dodgers themselves. It all fell so neatly into place for Jenrick. The Left really cannot help itself, and he must have known this before he embarked on his publicity stunt. Channel 4 News spoke for much of progressive Britain who felt offended by his initiative: having watched the footage, they decided that the main news story was not that a worrying level of passengers were skipping ticket checks (nearly one in every 25 passengers, according to Jenrick) but that the Tory MP didn't have Transport for London's permission to film there at all. Twitter users with more time on their hands than I have since pointed out that TfL rules seem only to apply to commercial filming, which obviously didn't include Jenrick's exercise. But his point was made: confronted with systematic and expensive fare-dodging, the Left would rather ignore the problem if it's identified by someone whose politics they disagree with. Let us be clear: Jenrick was offering no actual solutions to the problem. This was an exercise in populism that Nigel Farage himself might have envied, and it is straight out of the Reform playbook to provoke voters' anger without explaining how they would fix the issue other than a few superficial slogans. Nevertheless, it was a PR triumph for Jenrick. The tidal wave of indignation that followed the posting of his video could hardly have suited his purposes better. Here he was, standing up for hard-pressed, law-abiding Londoners while eight 'officers' (it was not clear if this was a reference to British Transport Police officers or Underground staff) stood nearby. 'It's also just annoying,' says Jenrick to the camera, 'watching so many people break the law and get away with it…It's the same with bike theft, phone theft, tool theft, shoplifting, drugs in town centres, weird Turkish barber shops. It's all chipping away at society. The state needs to reassert itself and go after law-breakers.' The reference to 'weird Turkish barber shops' was also ingenious: most people share Jenrick's suspicion about the motivation behind their recent proliferation in high streets across the country, but it is exactly the kind of accusation that makes the red mist descend in the eyes and brains of many on the Left who would rather not bring foreigners into it. At root, there is a fundamental and more complex policy issue which a minute-long video on Twitter can hardly be expected to analyse – the differing approaches to crime and its causes by the Right and the Left. Judging from many of the responses to Jenrick's original Tweet, there are very few Labour supporters who took to heart Tony Blair's view that the party should be 'tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime', preferring to emphasise the latter and completely ignore the former. Fare-dodging is caused, it seems, either by poverty or by the state not devoting enough resources to prevent the rest of us from behaving badly. Meanwhile, the Right, as represented by Jenrick, believes it's all about personal responsibility and personal choices. It is not difficult to see whose side most voters will take in that debate. Labour and the Left in general should never have fallen into Jenrick's trap. Just as Blair and Jack Straw caused outrage for a few on the Left in the 1990s by criticising 'aggressive' beggars and squeegee merchants, yet won the support of a majority of voters who were fed up with the practice and who felt, until then, unable to complain about it, so Jenrick is empowering others to object to a pretty straightforward injustice that is pushing up prices for the law-abiding majority. Cynical? Undoubtedly. Opportunistic? Without question. Effective? Certainly.

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