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The new face of online abuse

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From deepfakes to cyberflashing, 2025 must be the year to eliminate the technology-facilitated abuse of women, write Jenni Dempster KC & Maleeka Bokhari

The Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA 2023) is an important legislative step which reaffirms the UK’s commitment to regulating harmful online content, particularly against women and children. It provides much-needed protection and safeguards in an evolving digital landscape where women are disproportionately impacted by technology-facilitated abuse. A report by artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepTrace, which conducted an analysis of 14,678 deepfake online videos, highlighted that 96% of them were non-consensual intimate content and that 100% of examined content on the top five ‘deepfake’ pornography websites targeted women.

This worrying trend cannot be allowed to exist in any democracy where the autonomy, dignity and voices of women are threatened because of malicious AI-generated content.

Deepfake crackdown

The Alliance for Universal Digital Rights defines deepfakes as ‘synthetic media that have been digitally manipulated to replace one person’s likeness convincingly with that

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

International arbitration team strengthened by double partner hire

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Firm celebrates trio holding senior regional law society and junior lawyers division roles

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Partner joins commercial and business litigation team in London

NEWS
The government has pledged to ‘move fast’ to protect children from harm caused by artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, and could impose limits on social media as early as the summer
All eyes will be on the Court of Appeal (or its YouTube livestream) next week as it sits to consider the controversial Mazur judgment
An NHS Foundation Trust breached a consultant’s contract by delegating an investigation into his knowledge of nurse Lucy Letby’s case
Draft guidance for schools on how to support gender-questioning pupils provides ‘more clarity’, but headteachers may still need legal advice, an education lawyer has said
Litigation funder Innsworth Capital, which funded behemoth opt-out action Merricks v Mastercard, can bring a judicial review, the High Court ruled last week
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