This month, committee work will begin on amendments to the crime and policing bill which concern pornography. Proposals include a wide-reaching ban on any image deemed to feature choking for sexual gratification, even if it’s privately made and never shared. People could potentially face up to two years in prison for possessing images of themselves – and all the while, the UK government refuses to ban X, even though its users across much of the world can use its software to create similar images without the consent of those depicted.
Three views on pornography
Is pornography right or wrong? While some people take a libertarian position and argue that it should never be restricted, sometimes even describing it as a form of speech, they are very much in the minority. Most of today’s debates about it tend to revolve around three positions.
Some say that pornography is always morally wrong. This position may stem from religious beliefs or from a traditional conservative value system. It is also held by some feminists, who see pornography as inherently degrading to women (which disregards gay pornography that only features men, and pornography made by and for women). They may argue that women who participate in it are always forced or coerced, or are behaving irrationally as a result of growing up in a misogynistic culture.
Others may consider it generally acceptable, but wrong in contexts where it encourages harmful behaviour. Some people argue that choking is always dangerous and that pornography featuring it has led to it becoming more popular in recent years (the evidence appears split on this). We know, from extensive research, that frequently seeing images of something initially considered unacceptable can make it seem normal. This is why Grok presenting children as sexual objects is so dangerous, because it could make it easier for some people to cross the line into real-world abuse.
Finally, some hold that the key issue is consent. People must be old enough and mentally competent enough to consent, but people taking this position argue that women are as capable of doing so as men. In this view, there is never an argument for the state to interfere with what people choose to make at home as long as nobody complains, but deepfakes and revenge porn are always wrong, no matter how tame they might look by comparison.
The first two positions focus primarily on what is available for people to see, though people focused on the second view may also worry about how those involved in the creation of pornography are affected by it. The third view posits that pornography can harm people even if they don’t see it themselves, but others can.
In recent years, consent has become the most important factor in how the majority of people relate to pornography, and it’s this that the UK government appears to have missed. Reducing the likelihood that people in the UK will see deepfakes on X, for instance, does not remove the risk that images of them will be used to make such deepfakes.
Bans and bad faith actors
In response to Grok making it easy for X users to create deepfakes, including images of children which clearly break existing UK laws, the government eventually stepped up to object. As a consequence – aware of the risk that it would be banned – X agreed to do two things. First, it will stop this function from working for users in the UK (assuming it can tell where they are – people with VPNs will still have access to it). Second, it will stop people in the UK from being able to see such images.
The first of these measures brings X into line with a proposed amendment to the crime and policing bill which would make it illegal to possess software capable of making deepfakes. This makes sense – although careful consideration of the amendment shows it is enormously problematic as proposed, and would seriously hamper many artists, graphic designers and filmmakers, as it could even affect common tools like Photoshop. The focus is on the software rather than how it’s used, simply because it has been assumed that that will be easier to police.
The second measure (viewing restrictions) may sound good, but there are two major problems with it. The first of these is illustrated by what happened when X first modified its software to prevent ‘nudification’ – users simply switched to generating pictures of people in skimpy bikinis or underwear. Now X has blocked those too, but users have already demonstrated that they can create other kinds of problematic image. With large numbers of people dedicated to finding workarounds, and X’s concessions delivered grudgingly, it seems unlikely that any solution short of removing the picture editing function altogether and banning users who post such content after creating it elsewhere will solve the problem.
Worse than this is the fact that simply not being able to see an image won’t mean that it isn’t out there. Users in countries with no such rules (or masked by a VPN) will still be able to modify pictures posted by users in the UK, and there will be nothing to stop them from describing those pictures to mock those users, or threatening to create them for purposes of blackmail or extortion.
While some people are doubtless using the software to create images for their private use, for others the intent is clearly to employ it as a tool for degrading and humiliating others, especially women and children. There is no reason to assume that this will stop just because the targeted individuals can’t directly see what’s going on. In fact, the invisibility of the images may sometimes make the problem worse for users in the UK, because it will make it harder for them to take any kind of legal action, such as charging posters with harassment or suing them over copyright.
Low-hanging fruit
Why is no, more serious, action being taken against X? The answer would seem to be simply that its owner is rich and influential, and that the US president has weighed in on his side. The rights of women and children do not appear to be a priority when weighed against this. In the absence of such action, the government, which still wants to look like it’s doing something, may well go for the low-hanging fruit, targeting private individuals with less ability to fight back. Those who remember the Spanner case of 1989 will know that there are no guarantees that prosecutions of people who have made images of themselves will be laughed out of court.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate analysed images created on X over an 11 day period, from 29 December to 8 January, and concluded that during that period alone, the platform’s in-house AI, Grok, generated three million sexualised images, 23,000 of them featuring children. It is quite clear where the real problem lies. If consenting adults are targeted for home-made images but billionaire-owned companies are allowed to break pre-existing laws on this scale, we must ask ourselves who our elected politicians are there to serve.
Bylines Network Gazette is out!
The latest Bylines Network Gazette is out now. Become a Friend of Bylines Network or upgrade to a paid Substack subscription, and you will get access to a vital collection of citizen articles and stories.
Journalism by the people, for the people.
