Associated Incidents
**Rome: **Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni is suing a man and his father for creating and circulating a pornographic deepfake video of her. The Italian PM has sought 100,000 Euros in damages for the videos being circulated online.
Meloni is due to testify before a court in Sardinian City on July 2 for the defamation case. As per a report by BBC, a 40-year-old man and his 73-year-old father are under investigation for creating the deepfake video.
Both men have been accused of defamation. Police stated that they were able to find them after tracking the mobile device and IP address used to upload and post the videos.
As per the indictment filed, the deepfake videos of the Italian PM were posted on a US pornographic site where they have been viewed "millions of times" over the past few months.
The prime minister's legal team has stated that if she is successful in securing the amount of the damages, the 100,000 euros will be donated to the Solidarity Fund for Victims of Violence - an organisation that supports women which have been victims of male violence and abuse.
Maria Giulia Marongiu, the PM's lawyer stated that the sum is "symbolic" and the demand for the compensation aims to "send a message to women who are victims of this kind of abuse of power not to be afraid to press charges."
As per BBC, the deepfake videos of Meloni date back to 2020, two years before she was elected as the Prime Minister of Italy in 2022.
This controversy comes after over 4000 AI experts, celebrities, influencers, politicians and activists signed an open letter in February asking lawmakers to regulate the use of artificial intelligence and other modes of technology used to create deepfakes.
The letter titled "Disrupting the Deepfake Supply Chain' stated that the number of AI-generated videos is a "threat to society due to the involvement of sexual images, child pornography, fraud, and political disinformation".
The calls for strict rules for AI technology and deepfakes increased after pornographic images of singer-songwriter Taylor Swift circulated ahead of the Super Bowl 2024.