Nude deepfakes of MEP Lena Schilling prompt open letter from 119 MEPs urging EU enforcement
Austrian Green MEP Lena Schilling said she learned last month that nude deepfakes of herself were circulating online, and joined 118 other MEPs in a letter asking the EU to pair its forthcoming ban on AI undressing apps with real enforcement.
Nude deepfakes of MEP Lena Schilling prompt open letter from 119 MEPs urging EU enforcement
Deepfakes taken from a press conference
Lena Schilling of the Austrian Green party said she found out last month that nude deepfakes of her were circulating online, after the Berlin-based thinktank Agora Digitale Transformation alerted her to the images. The pictures were taken from one of her first ever press conferences and digitally altered to remove her clothing.
She said her first reaction was disgust, recalling how nervous she had been and how much she had prepared for that press conference.
"I felt disgusted."
A systemic threat to women in politics
According to an ADT report, Schilling is one of 50 MEPs targeted by sexualised deepfakes, 46 of them women. The thinktank described deepfake pornography as a systemic threat to women in European politics. An earlier ADT report found that 138 female parliamentarians from 22 EU countries had been affected, and that women were 33 times more likely than their male colleagues to appear in such images.
Schilling described the images as a form of digital violence against women, layering onto the sexist abuse women in politics already face.
"Just imagine what would happen to our society if more and more women disappear from public life."
- She said such things make going into politics even harder than it already is
- Other targeted female MEPs feared coming forward, she said
- Her message to them: "there's nothing to be ashamed of. People misused your photos, you did nothing wrong"
The letter and the 2 December ban
A letter to the EU, initiated by Schilling and German Green MEP Terry Reintke, was signed by 119 MEPs. It demands that enforcement mechanisms accompany a forthcoming EU-wide ban, effective 2 December, on apps and websites that use AI to undress women.
"A ban on paper protects no one until it is enforced."
The letter pointed to widespread use of "nudifier" apps in which photos of women can be undressed with just one click, and warned that every young woman considering a political career must now factor in that this could happen to her. Schilling said the aim was to push national authorities to close loopholes or workarounds that would let the apps keep functioning in the EU.
What Schilling is asking for
Schilling said she spoke up in the hope that member states would crack down on tech companies for which this kind of digital violence could be a viable business model.
"Every woman who wants to run for office should be able to do so without being afraid of being undressed against her will."
She also said: "We were stripped naked without our consent. This cannot become the new normal". The EU ban on AI undressing apps takes effect on 2 December, and her letter presses member states to close loopholes and act against the companies behind the apps.
