Paris Hilton calls out deepfake porn on Capitol Hill: 'no amount of money can stop it'
Paris Hilton is calling for an urgent clampdown on the use of deepfake porn online.
The 44-year-old hotel heiress headed to Washington, D.C. on Thursday to voice her support for the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act - known as the DEFIANCE Act - which would allow victims of deepfake porn to take legal action against those responsible for its creation and distribution.
Paris opened up about her own experiences following the 2004 leak of a sex tape in which she was featured with ex-boyfriend Rick Salomon.
Speaking on Capitol Hill, Paris explained, "Coming back to the Capitol, I feel something new, strength. When I was 19 years old, a private, intimate video of me was shared with the world without my consent."
The mother of two continued, "People called it a scandal. It wasn't. It was abuse. There were no laws at the time to protect me. There weren't even words for what had been done to me. The internet was still new, and so was the cruelty that came with it. They called me names. They laughed and made me the punchline. They sold my pain for clicks, and then they told me to be quiet, to move on, to even be grateful for the attention."
"These people didn't see me as a young woman who had been exploited. They didn't see the panic that I felt, the humiliation or the shame. No one asked me what I lost - I lost control over my body, over my reputation. My sense of safety and self-worth was stolen from me," Paris continued.
She went on to declare she's still being victimized by the use of deepfake porn online, adding, "I believed that the worst was behind me, but it wasn't. What happened to me then is happening now to millions of women and girls in a new and more terrifying way. Before, someone had to betray your trust and steal something real. Now all it takes is a computer and a stranger’s imagination. Deepfake pornography has become an epidemic."
Paris claimed there are more than "100,000 explicit deepfake images" of her that have been "made by AI" and she wants the law to change in order to protect the next generation of women, including her two-year-old daughter, London.
She added, "Not one of them is real, not one of them is consensual. And each time a new one appears, that horrible feeling returns, that fear that someone somewhere is looking at it right now and thinking it’s real. No amount of money or lawyers can stop it or protect me from more. It's the newest form of victimization happening at scale, to your daughters, your sisters, your friends and neighbors."
Her plea continued, "Too many women are afraid to exist online or sometimes to exist at all, and I know how that feels, because I lived it. Now I have a daughter who's just two-and-a-half years old, and I would go to the ends of the earth to protect her. But I can't protect her from this, not yet. And that's why I'm here. This isn't just about technology, it's about power. It's about using someone's likeness to humiliate, silence and strip them of their dignity. Victims deserve more than after-the-fact apologies. We deserve justice."
Paris concluded her speech by saying, "I had the platform to reclaim my story, but so many others don't. And what I've learned is that when your image is violated, it doesn't disappear. It lives inside you, but so does your power. Telling the truth has helped me heal, and I am so proud that today I stand here without shame. I am Paris Hilton, a woman, a wife, a mom, a survivor, and what was done to me was wrong. And I will keep telling the truth to protect every woman, every girl, every survivor, now and for the future.”
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