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."
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