Nabil Boudi, the Paris-based attorney of Khelif, confirmed to Variety that both figures were mentioned in the body of the complaint, posted to the anti-online hatred center of the Paris public prosecutor’s office on Friday.
The lawsuit was filed against X, which under French law means that it was filed against unknown persons. That “ensure[s] that the ‘prosecution has all the latitude to be able to investigate against all people,” including those who may have written hateful messages under pseudonyms, said Boudi. The complaint nevertheless mentions famously controversial figures. (snip)
Boudi said that although the complaint mentions names, “What we’re asking is that the prosecution investigates not only these people but whoever it feels necessary. If the case goes to court, they will stand trial.”
Boudi also claimed that while the lawsuit was filed in France, “it could target personalities overseas,” pointing out that “the prosecutor’s office for combating online hate speech has the possibility to make requests for mutual legal assistance with other countries.” He added that there were agreements with the U.S. equivalent of the French office for combating online hate speech. (snip-More)
Make sure AF2 is deep cleaned because Lord only knows what @KamalaHarris and her team have done on there. The smell alone on that plane must be crazy. https://t.co/0Kr0K3QXYR
So I did this thing called journalism (Megyn should give it try) where I did interviews, research. Turns out MN's new law does NOT mandate menstrual products in boys' bathrooms. Talked to school admin association & MN's largest school district. #TamponTimhttps://t.co/wCGSJJRoNlhttps://t.co/dj9AZSSqqQ
The Star Tribune editorial board cleared up a lot of misinformation on the right's "Tampon Tim" attacks, including that he's forcing menstrual products in boys' bathrooms.
As a girl dad, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dropped feminine hygiene products off at school because they were needed unexpectedly and not provided. Calling him Tampon Tim should be a badge of honor. pic.twitter.com/cbsphTQzcS
Walz is an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders
Decades later they get into positions of power,are portrayed as “experts” by the media & push for policies that allow China to steal our jobs & factories & flood America with drugs https://t.co/wTSua22DKa
“It’s different because while Joe Biden was incompetent by senility, Kamala Harris is incompetent by stupidity. She has supported 100% of Joe Biden’s disastrous policies. And that’s why our strategy will not change. Overall, we will continue to hammer away on the message that you just heard President Trump share for more than an hour at that press conference, taking questions on all types of issues and calling out Kamala Harris for her failure.” – Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline “Cow-Toe” Leavitt, this afternoon on Fox News.
Moments after Trump concludes a rambling rally where he claimed he had larger crowds than MLK's March on Washington at the January 6th insurrection rally, Trump national press secretary Karoline Leavitt claims the Trump campaign is "disciplined." pic.twitter.com/y0QreoaH6x
— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) August 8, 2024
More Putinism on the march. Prominent US cultists are already hailing the move on X. Photo: Bulgarian PM Dimitar Glavchev. Bulgaria is a member of the EU and NATO.
Read the full article. Peters is accused, among other things, of giving a staffer’s security badge to a conspiracy theorist that she allowed to access county voting equipment. Her trial is now in its eighth day.
🚨 ⚖️ #TinaPetersTrial VERDICT BREAKDOWN 🚨 Now, Attorneys are asking for PSI (Pre Sentence Investigative Report) prepared by probation department. Each side needs an hour to present. Judge explains its to know how to sentence Tina Peters. pic.twitter.com/mwAfAaPwhn
An 8-year legal saga over censorship by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over a Bill of Rights display in the state capitol building has finally ended. We won the lawsuit last year (it started in 2016) but we only got our attorney fees and costs this week! 🎉https://t.co/yT38YUwpqd
Elagabalus3 days ago “The law…forbids teachers from raising gender identity and sexual orientation issues with younger students.” Excuse me, but every time a straight teacher mentions his or her heterosexually-married husband, wife, or kids, the issue of sexual orientation gets raised, because as we all know, whenever straight people mention their spouse everyone immediately goes straight to thinking about the two of them having sex and that makes everyone else feel uncomfortable, and we can’t have that. Oh, wait…no, that’s only the way it works for gay people.
zhera The goal is to shove kids so far into the closet they will never find their way out.
BREAKING: Kamala Harris’ rally in Las Vegas is packed and entirely sold out. Trump is seething because he could never pull a crowd like this. That’s why he’s cancelled nearly all of his events. Retweet so all Americans see this energy and excitement.https://t.co/lU6weSWhav
Longtime JMG readers may recall Cleta Mitchell for her work with the anti-LGBTQ hate group NOM. In 2011, she caused infighting within the now-defunct homocon group GOProud when she spearheaded a movement to boycott CPAC over GOProud’s attendance. GOProud founder Chris Barron called her a “bigot,” prompting now-Fox News host Tammy Bruce to resign from the group. Barron then apologized. Of note, Mitchell appears to have a particular hatred for gay men because her first husband left her for another man. In 1992, Mitchell’s second husband was convicted on five felony counts of banking fraud.
‘A different level than 2020’: Trump’s plan to steal election is taking shape https://t.co/wmhUwXZ597
The call to action comes as the issue has intensified in recent years, affecting students to public figures like Taylor Swift and AOC.
Originally published by The 19th Republished with their republish link.
“This is an issue that affects everybody — from celebrities to high school girls.”
That’s how Jen Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, describes the pervasiveness of image-based sexual abuse, a problem that artificial intelligence (AI) has intensified in recent years, touching everyone from students to public figures like Taylor Swift and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In May, the Biden-Harris administration announced a call to action to curb such abuse, which disproportionately targets girls, women and LGBTQ+ people. Stopping these images, whether real or AI-generated, from being circulated and monetized requires not just the government to act, but tech companies to as well, according to the White House.
“We’re inviting technology companies and civil society to consider what steps they can take to prevent image-based sexual abuse, and there’s really a spectrum of actors who we hope will get involved in addressing the problem,” Klein said. “So that can be anything from the payment processors, to mobile app stores, to mobile app and operating system developers, cloud providers, search engines, etc. They all have a particular part of the sort of ecosystem in which this problem happens.”
Responding to the White House’s call to action, the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and the National Network to End Domestic Violence announced in June that they would form a working group to counteract the circulation and monetization of image-based sexual abuse. In late July, Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, removed 63,000 accounts linked to the “sextortion” of children and teens.
While older forms of this abuse include the leaking of intimate photos without the consent of all parties, the AI version includes face swapping, whereby the head of one individual is placed on another person’s naked body, Klein said. Both Swift and Ocasio-Cortez have been victims of this kind of sexual abuse. In March, Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act of 2024. The legislation provides recourse for people, more than 90 percent of whom are women, who have had their likenesses used in intimate “digital forgery.” The Senate passed the DEFIANCE Act on July 23.
Such images have also garnered repeated headlines this year after spreading at schools. The White House’s appeal to tech companies follows the Biden-Harris administration’s recent updates to Title IX, the law that bars educational institutions that receive federal funds from engaging in sex discrimination. Under the new regulations that took effect Thursday, sex-based harassment includes sexually explicit deepfake images if they create a hostile school environment.
“We respectfully urge the Department of Education to issue guidance delineating Title IX procedures and protocols specifically tailored to addressing digital sexual harassment within educational institutions,” the letter states. “This guidance should provide clear direction on how schools can effectively handle cases of digital sexual harassment including support mechanisms for victims, investigation procedures, research and referrals, and prevention strategies.”
The Biden-Harris administration’s effort to prevent the proliferation of explicit deepfake images coincides with states taking action.
“There’s a patchwork of laws across the country, and there are 20 states that have passed laws penalizing the dissemination of nonconsensual AI-generated pornographic material,” Klein said. “But there’s a lot of work to be done, both at the state level and at the federal level to really make that work a whole quilt to continue the process.”
“It was pretty tricky because of the various First Amendment arguments that get raised,” he said. “The bill, to be honest, got watered down more than I wanted as it went through the process. But it has since been copied in other states, and then frankly, made stronger in other states.”
Berman decided to file legislation to prohibit child sex abuse deepfakes when the California District Attorneys Association informed his office that they’re increasingly catching people who are creating, disseminating or possessing such images.
“Their interpretation of California law currently is that it is not specifically illegal, because it doesn’t involve an image of an actual child — because AI takes thousands of images of real children and then spits out this artificial image,” Berman said. “So they said, ‘We need to close this loophole in California law and make sure that the law explicitly states that child sexual abuse material, even if it’s created by artificial intelligence, is illegal. I was shocked that people were even using AI to create this type of content, and then I found out just how pervasive it is, especially on the dark web. It’s terrifying.”
Possessing or distributing such images online may result in perpetrators sexually exploiting minors offline, making it all the more important to address AI-generated versions of this content before it spirals out of control and becomes a huge problem for the nation’s young people, Berman said.
Multiple schools in California have been rocked by deepfake scandals, often related to images created by students of their peers. In March, a Calabasas High School student accused her onetime friend of disseminating actual and AI-generated nudes of her to their peers. That same month, a Beverly Hills middle school expelled five students for allegedly circulating AI-generated nudes of their classmates.
Such incidents are one reason Berman believes students need to be taught to use AI responsibly. “AB 2876 will equip students with the skills and the training that they need to both harness the benefits of AI, but also to mitigate the dangers and the ethical considerations of using artificial intelligence,” he said.
The legislation has been ordered to a third reading, the bill’s final phase before it leaves the state assembly and moves to the senate. Meanwhile, his bill to prohibit child sex abuse deepfakes, AB 1831, has been referred to the suspense file, meaning that the bill’s potential fiscal impacts to the state are being reviewed. The legislation would take effect January 1 if enacted.
“It’d be great if Congress can pass some federal standards on this,” Berman said. “It’s always an ideal when it comes to legislation that really applies to every state and to kids in every state.”
Pending national legislation addressing the issue includes The SHIELD Act and The Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSA), which the Senate passed July 30, although it still awaits a vote in the House of Representatives. The former would make the non-consensual sharing of intimate images a federal offense, while the latter would require social media companies to take steps to prevent children and teens from being sexually exploited online, among other measures. KOSA, however, has sparked fears that lawmakers could use it to censor content they dislike, particularly LGBTQ+ content, under the guise of protecting children. Civil liberties groups like the ACLU said that the bill raises privacy concerns, may limit youth’s access to important online resources and could silence needed conversations.
Evan Greer, director at Fight for the Future, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on digital rights, objected to KOSA’s Senate passage in a statement. “We need legislation that addresses the harm of Big Tech and still lets young people fight for the type of world that they actually want to grow up in,” she said.
AI-generated image-based sexual abuse also affects college students, according to Tracey Vitchers, executive director of It’s On Us, a nonprofit that addresses college sexual assault. She called it an emerging issue on college campuses.
“It really started with the emergence of nonconsensual image-sharing involving an individual sharing a private photo with someone that they thought they could trust,” she said. “We are now starting to see this challenge come forward with AI and deepfakes, and unfortunately, many schools are not equipped to investigate gender-based harassment and violence that occurs as a result of deepfakes.”
Vitchers appreciates that the new Title IX regulations touch on the issue, but said that colleges need more guidance from the Department of Education about how to respond to these incidents, and students need more prevention education.
“It’s something that we have begun discussing with some of our partners, particularly those in the online dating space,” Vitchers said. “We are hearing that fear, among particularly young women on campus, about someone who can just take a picture of you from Instagram and use AI to superimpose it onto porn. Then it gets circulated and it feels impossible to get it removed from the internet.”
Some tech companies have already offered their support to the White House’s effort to stop image-based sexual abuse, Klein said, but she would like to hear from others. Although state and national lawmakers are working to enact legislation and regulations, Klein said that the Biden-Harris administration is calling on tech companies to intervene because they can take action now.
“Given the scale that image-based abuse has been rapidly proliferating with the advent of generative AI, we need to do this while we continue to work toward longer-term solutions,” she said.
Aug. 4, 2024, 5:00 AM CDT By Anthony L. Fisher, Senior Editor, MSNBC Daily
It’s always the end of the world for the Make America Great Again movement. Ever since Donald Trump’s escalator ride in 2015, there’s been zero nuance to the MAGA message. “Only I can fix it,” the leader roared to thunderous applause upon accepting the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
But especially since Vice President Kamala Harris became the likely Democratic nominee, MAGA messaging has gone from overwrought and hyperbolic to absolutely hysterical and apocalyptic.
Trumpists wave off any and all criticism as unworthy of discussion, bad-faith accusations from minds afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome. And yet, deranged is the only appropriate descriptor of the rhetoric emanating from MAGA land’s loudest megaphones. It’s Trump and some of his closest allies and most prominent boosters who have been speaking of an imminent totalitarian government, end times and literal biblical demons.
These people include podcasters with massive, fiercely dedicated audiences. Titans of industry. Religious extremists with political ambitions and close ties to Trump world. And the richest man in the world.
Musk once generally reserved that term for environmentalists — or really anyone concerned about climate change. But he’s since expanded the definition to anything that involves the mysterious and horror-movie-sounding “woke mind virus.” In 2023, Musk told Joe Rogan, “It’s essentially the extinctionists. It is that they’re propagating the extinction of humanity and civilization.”
It’s hard to argue what’s “most disturbing” among these deranged comments from very angry people, but a worthy contender came from Lance Wallnau, the influential Christian nationalist who has the ears of both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson. He likened the first Black and Indian woman to be nominated for president by a major party to Jezebel — a spirit with demonic powers. In case he wasn’t driving the point home with just the name, Wallnau clarified that Harris represents “the spirit of Jezebel … in a way that’ll be even much more ominous than Hillary because she’ll bring a racial component and she’s younger.”
The MAGA right hasn’t cornered the market on ridiculous and irresponsible hyperbole in politics. Left, right and center are all capable of taking liberties with facts, hyping the fear factor and exaggerating the stakes.
But of all American political tribes, there’s only one with politically influential figures using this election season to prophesize about Jezebels and explicitly making it about race and gender. Or literally warning of the imminent end of the world because of a Marxist conspiracy to smuggle totalitarianism on an unsuspecting public through environmentalism.
This was once the content you’d find on the furthest, most ridiculous fringes of the AM radio dial. And they are what remains of the brain trust of the MAGA movement. (snip-More)
Some people said militant anti-abortion activist Matthew Trewhella was a ’90s figure who’s no longer relevant, but our reporting shows he’s influencing policies, bills and movements today.
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Wisconsin Watch. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
In the fall of 2022, Phoebe Petrovic, an investigative reporter at Wisconsin Watch and a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, noticed a pastor and his church appearing in local news coverage for their anti-LGBTQ+ protests. Looking closer revealed Pastor Matthew Trewhella’s startling history. And digging even deeper, she noticed an untold story: his broader influence on modern Republican politics. His rise helps illustrate the growing power of the Christian right in the Republican party. Here, Petrovic describes how she reported the story and what she learned.
What were the key takeaways from your reporting?
A few decades ago, Trewhella was known as a militant anti-abortion activist. Today, he’s got a different reputation: thought leader on the far right, increasingly welcomed by Republicans.
Trewhella helped to rehabilitate his reputation through his 2013 self-published book, “The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates,” which uses a 16th-century Protestant doctrine to argue that government officials have a God-given right and duty to defy laws, policies or court opinions deemed “unjust or immoral” under “the law of God.”
He’s preached this doctrine to county Republican parties and local groups across the country, even to the National Sheriffs’ Association, a preeminent law enforcement organization.
His book has influenced Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions. At least 10 measures across the country refer to lesser magistrates. One of the earliest, issued in 2019, was authored by a county commissioner who has described reading Trewhella’s book as a “turning point” for him.
A prominent booster of debunked election conspiracy claims is using Trewhella’s book to disrupt future elections.
How does Trewhella fit into the election? What does he say about his work?
In the cast of characters who might influence the upcoming election, Trewhella is not rallying crowds the same way as Steve Bannon, the former Donald Trump strategist, or Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA. Trewhella is more behind the scenes, providing a religious justification for some far-right policies and causes.
Trewhella says that he promotes nonviolence. But after an activist killed an abortion provider in 1993, he signed a document describing the murder of these doctors as “justifiable.”
In a brief interview, I asked Trewhella about his reputational shift over the decades. He responded: “Most people will always only care about three things in life: me, myself and I. … It’s only because of their mundane, self-absorbed lives that they would think someone like me is an extremist. That’s my answer.”
Trewhella did not respond to over a dozen attempts to set up a second interview. He did not answer written questions by email and refused a certified letter containing them.
What did experts tell you about Trewhella?
Frederick Clarkson, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, which studies threats to democracy and human rights, has tracked Trewhella for decades. Clarkson said, “All of those county commissioners and mayors and whatnot who are entertaining this stuff, they’re putting people’s lives and the entirety of civil order at risk by playing footsie with Matt Trewhella.”
Another extremism researcher, Devin Burghart, said, “I think that the public needs to know that he’s a dangerous theocrat, who would fundamentally alter the United States in irreparable ways that would harm many, including women, people of color and the LGBTQ community.” Burghart is president of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, which tracks the far right. (snip-More)
Despite passing in the Senate earlier this week, the Kid’s Online Safety Act (KOSA) is reportedly dead in the U.S. House after progressives, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), worried that it would possible censor LGBTQ+ content. Some Republicans also opposed the bill, stating that it would violate free speech protections for social media platforms and their users.
KOSA would have mandated that social media companies take measures to prevent recommending any content that promotes mental health disorders (like eating disorders, drug use, self-harm, sexual abuse, and bullying) unless minors specifically search for such content. Opponents worried that Republican attorneys general who see LGBTQ+ identities as harmful forms of mental illness would use KOSA’s provisions to censor queer web content and prosecute platforms that provide access to it.
“KOSA was a poorly written bill that would have made kids less safe,” said one of the bill’s most vocal opponents, Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a nonprofit that protects human rights in the digital age. “It’s good that this unconstitutional censorship bill is dead for now, but I am not breathing a sigh of relief.”
“KOSA was always too controversial to succeed, and divided our coalition,” Greer added. “If we want to take on Big Tech and win, we have to quickly regroup and make a plan for next Congress. We need strong privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic justice legislation that address the harms of Big Tech without endangering free expression and human rights.”
Many other groups opposed the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the LGBT Technology Partnership, as well as LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations in six states.
While KOSA passed in the Senate earlier this week in a 93-1 vote, three senators voted against the bills: Ron Wyden (D-OR), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Rand Paul (R-KY) — all three made statements explaining why.
Wyden specifically said he voted against the bills because he worried a future administration could use the legislation to “pressure companies to censor gay, trans, and reproductive health information,” The Hill reported.
Lee said, “This legislation empowers the [Federal Trade Commission (FTC)] to censor any content it deems to cause ‘harm,’ ‘anxiety,’ or ‘depression,’ in a way that could (and most likely would) be used to censor the expression of political, religious, and other viewpoints disfavored by the FTC.”
Paul wrote in a recent Louisville Courier Journal opinion article, “KOSA would impose an unprecedented duty of care on internet platforms to design their sites to mitigate and prevent harms…. This requirement will not only stifle free speech, but it will deprive Americans of the benefits of our technological advancements.”
KOSA was introduced by anti-LGBTQ+ Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who said that one of the bill’s top priorities is to protect children from “the transgender in this culture.” Blackburn’s office told LGBTQ Nation that her comment had been “taken out of context” and wasn’t related to KOSA. Nevertheless, the anti-LGBTQ+ conservative think tank Heritage Foundation has also said it wishes to use the law to “guard” kids against the “harms of… transgender content.”
Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, said, “KOSA compounds nationwide attacks on young peoples’ right to learn and access information, on and offline. As state legislatures and school boards across the country impose book bans and classroom censorship laws, the last thing students and parents need is another act of government censorship deciding which educational resources are appropriate for their families.”
Scottie's Playtime 