Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has filed a defamation lawsuit against a 73-year-old father and his 40-year-old son for creating deep fake porn videos that used her face superimposed onto someone else’s body. The Prime Minister is seeking a 'symbolic' sum of €100,000 in damages, which she plans to donate to a fund to support women who are victims of domestic violence, said reports.
The Prime Minister will appear before the Sassari, Sardinia court on July 2, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
The said lewd video was uploaded to an American porn website in 2020, before Meloni became the Prime Minister, and was viewed millions of times, the indictment read. "The lawsuit is meant to "send a message to women who are victims of this kind of abuse of power not to be afraid to press charges," the lawyer added.
The lawsuit comes amid concerns about the deepfake technology, which means an image or video digitally manipulated to superimpose a person’s face onto another body. The deepfakes are now in the news for their potential to spread political disinformation and fuel online sexual harassment considering that 96% of deepfake material online is pornographic.
Of late, multiple deepfakes have gone viral, including a video of Queen Elizabeth delivering a fake Christmas address in 2020 and fake images of former President Donald Trump posing with Black voters.
Though deepfakes are not illegal in Europe under the EU’s new AI rulebook, Italy is set to present legislation to regulate AI later this month.
Recently, Meta was urged to update its policy on deep fake content after a manipulated video of US President Joe Biden went viral. video of Biden voting with his adult granddaughter, manipulated to falsely appear that he inappropriately touched her chest had gone viral last year. It was reported to Meta and later the company's oversight board as hate speech.
