On April 21, the Tennessee House passed a bill making it illegal to post “intimate” deep fakes online, as former NewsChannel 5 meteorologist Bree Smith, a deep fake victim and the main driver of the legislation, watched with her family.
“I am a flood of emotions,” Smith wrote on Facebook. “I am most proud that my boys were with me…” that they witnessed firsthand how justice can be achieved.”
Smith told a state House committee in March that someone had posted photos of her face on someone else’s “semi-nude body” online. She also claimed that there were numerous imposters on social media who duped her fans into sending money to the imposters.
“Discovering these imposter accounts and seeing the degrading fake images and videos was devastating to me,” she said during testimony.
The bill, the Preventing Deep Fake Images Act, passed the House with no opposition on April 21, about a week after the Senate approved it 32-0.
“Wrongs can be made right. “Pain can be transformed into purpose,” Smith wrote. “Our voices and our stories have power and when we use them well, we can change the world.”
The law punishes anyone who attempts “to disclose or threaten to disclose or solicit the disclosure of an intimate digital depiction with the intent to harass, annoy, threaten, alarm, or cause substantial harm to the finances or reputation of the depicted individual.”
The bill also allows people to sue and recover financial damages from those who post images or videos of “intimate digital depictions… without the consent of the individual” or who “recklessly disregards whether the individual has not consented to such disclosure.”
