Peer pressure, revenge, horniness: Teens explain why they make fake nudes

Most kids know that deepfake nudes are harmful, Thorn survey says.

See full article...

 

[Jeff S]

Apparently middle schools need to add philosophy with a weighted section on the basis of morality and justice. This response will not serve this individual well in the future.

I don't even know they need philosophy - that's pretty abstract. I think what they need is exposure to the stories of harms caused by it - survivor stories of how deeply it hurt them and negatively impacted their lives (maybe leading to things like self harm, drug/alcohol abuse, loss of friends, loss of grades as they were too depressed and anxious to focus on academics, etc), and stories about kids who committed suicide after being bullied, and stories about kids who snapped and committed violence after being bullied.

Coupled with making it clear that if they engage in bullying, they WILL be kicked out of school, (and we need to make sure that happens) - since bullying can ruin people's lives in many ways (e.g. if you take a reasonably smart kid and bully them so bad they do poorly in school, you potentially sabotage their entire adult life, or at least, the early parts of it - e.g. not going to college or trade school, not getting or being able to hold a job, maybe not participating in Arts activities that could have inspired them into a career in the Arts, etc), then it's reasonable that if some students are actively ruining the school experience of other students, you remove them from school - even if that potentially harms THEIR future adult life as a consequence, because if that's what it takes to protect other students, that's what you should do.

The bullies mainly have themselves to blame - though, to be fair often bullies are bullies because they were bullied, e.g. by parents and other people around them - but even when that's the case, the first order of business is protecting other students from them.

Maybe send them to a school for bullies, where they can continue to learn, without being in a position to keep bullying the general population of students, and that school can have special focus on trying to rehabilitate those students, and also, identify students in abusive living conditions and get that addressed.

 

[Uragan]

In an ideal world, we could teach our way out of this. The problem is teenagers are basically amoral idiots. Kids will do this. The best we can do is punish sharing, but it won't make much difference.

Did we read the same story? Most kids already know that doing this is bad, hence they have some sense of morality.

 

[Uragan]

I'm just wondering when someone under 18 will be prosecuted for making CSAM for this, or if it has not already. It's one of those areas where technology has far outstripped the legal system on this and it's only a matter of time before someone gets nabbed for this. Student makes a deepfake of a bully classmate who's parents turn around and try to have the child in question prosecuted for making CSAM. Jeebus that entire situation just thinking about it is messed up on so many different levels.

It's times like this where I really wish some aspects of technology were never invented. -_-

I’m pretty sure that they would be prosecuted for making and distributing CSAM.

Technology hasn’t outstripped our laws. The current laws just need to be enforced.

 

[Damnicus]

Did we read the same story? Most kids already know that doing this is bad, hence they have some sense of morality.

Sure. Then why does it still happen?

 

[Uragan]

Sure. Then why does it still happen?

The motivations of the teens who did this was also outlined in the story.

Calling all teens “amoral” due to the actions of the minority of teens who actually generate deepfakes is unfair to the body as a whole.

 

[Edified]

If they were taught not to deepfake other people, it would be no big deal.
Quit blaming the victims.

Exactly.

We teach our kids that there's nothing to be ashamed about their bodies or its parts or how it may be different from another person.

At the same time we teach them that some things are not polite;
That bodily care & cleanliness has real practical value;
Modesty can have a real practical effect on other people's behavior, it doesn't make it your fault, and it shouldn't matter, but its a practical reality;
That they shouldn't let fear, shame or blackmail or even their own real mistakes stop them from leaving a bad situation or stop them from seeking help;
That some people will behave badly no matter what you do, it's not your fault and it doesn't make it right;

It's true that you only control you, but that's exactly the reason why someone else can be culpable, they control them. The deep fakes are akin to sharing lies about someone, it has a real practical effect manipulating how others think of and connect to those being lied about. Even discounting shame, broadcasting the story that someone may be promiscuous will change how other relate to them. Moreover, consent.

We also teach are kids that what they consume can manipulate how they think and that they should respect others intrinsically.

 

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Except obviously not everyone wants or consents to being deepfaked. Nor should we be generating deepfakes of children.

If I get deepfaked, the viewers will be screaming, and clawing out their eyes.

In all seriousness, I suspect the worst offenders will be folks using DF to extort or blackmail people. This may not even be "pornographic." It may be video of someone stealing something, or saying something awful.

 

[DarthSlack]

Exactly.

We teach our kids that there's nothing to be ashamed about their bodies or its parts or how it may be different from another person.

At the same time we teach them that some things are not polite;
That bodily care & cleanliness has real practical value;
Modesty can have a real practical effect on other people's behavior, it doesn't make it your fault, and it shouldn't matter, but its a practical reality;
That they shouldn't let fear, shame or blackmail or even their own real mistakes stop them from leaving a bad situation or stop them from seeking help;
That some people will behave badly no matter what you do, it's not your fault and it doesn't make it right;

It's true that you only control you, but that's exactly the reason why someone else can be culpable, they control them. The deep fakes are akin to sharing lies about someone, it has a real practical effect manipulating how others think of and connect to those being lied about. Even discounting shame, broadcasting the story that someone may be promiscuous will change how other relate to them. Moreover, consent.

It's truly amazing that you can write all that and somehow manage to completely miss the point.

Shame has no place in this discussion because deepfakes are about bullying. Whether someone is ashamed of their body or not is some sort of weird smokescreen that some posters seem to think is relevant.

Try focusing on what is important: That we teach respect of others, not descend into some weird-ass discussion about nudity.

 

[Jeff S]

how is this different from "Adults need to be supervised with guns", because some will go and murder other people. This idea that parents must control and monitor literally every moment of all their children's lives is beyond unrealistic. Imagine if your parents tried to do that? You advocate for something beyond impossible.

Well, for one thing, we know that children/teen brains aren't fully developed, and in particular, the areas responsible for executive function/impulse control/emotional regulation are in quite a few children and teens, not yet fully developed leading to issues with those.

Now before you say, "I know plenty of very responsible teens"; yes, of course. It's compicated. We're talking about entire populations, and there will be a range of development - just as some kids bodies physically develop sooner than their peers, and some later, so too with the brain (as it is, at the end of the day, another part of the body).

On top of that, there are complicating factors - some kids are in high stress/abuse situations, with parents or other adults physically, verbally, emotionally/psychologically, and sexually abusing them, which is also going to screw up their mental/psychological development.

Also, the "I'm PRO 2A" crowd doesn't like any suggestion that the government has any roll to play, but maybe SOMEONE should be doing some sort of screening of adults to find out which ones are at high risk of committing crimes with their guns.

Every time you suggest such a thing, someone will get very upset and claim that this will just be a pretext for whoever is in power to take away the guns of people that aren't their supporters. While this is a valid consideration, I think totally throwing out the idea of any type of psychological screening, when we KNOW that some people are mentally unstable, is just as problematic.

There could be solutions like, you know, passing the laws such that the someone who is doing the screening ought not to be part of the government, so that it's not the government in power who is making the decisions - independent psychologists, for example. With mandatory/automatic appeals for anyone who one psychologist recommends be denied access to firearms, so that the case will be reviewed by another panel of psychologists, so that one single person can't take away someone's firearms.

That still has some risk of the "independent" psychologists coming under government influence, so careful safeguards should be put in place to preserve their independence.

For example, ways incumbents could try to pressure psychologists into making the "right" determination might include things like changing licensing requirements to force people out of the profession who are trying to be honest; creating systems of pay that reward psych's making the "right" determinations and taking business away from psych's making the "wrong" determination, etc.

 

[Bernardo Verda]

Not to dispute that this kind of thing could well be a serious and significant problem, but there's a credibility problem with this story. How about reporting genuine research from sources with actual expertise, like the American Psychology Association or Pew Research? This stuff seems suspiciously like marketing materials disguised as research, published by people with an agenda, like the vendors of "security solutions"?

This smells just a bit too much of "think of the children" moral panic, being pushed by people who make a profit from it.

Even the organization whose "survey" is featured in the article, for example, has a reputation in this regard:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization)#Criticism

Netzpolitik.org and the investigative platform Follow the Money criticize that "Thorn has blurred the line between advocacy for children’s rights and its own interest as a vendor of scanning software."[11][12] The possible conflict of interest has also been picked up by Balkan Insight,[13] Le Monde,[14] and El Diario.[15] A documentary by the German public-service television broadcaster ZDF criticizes Thorn’s influence on the legislative process of the European Union for a law from which Thorn would profit financially.[16][17] A move of a former member of Europol to Thorn has been found to be maladministration by the European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly.[18][19]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization)#Criticism

 

[ian191]

Apparently middle schools need to add philosophy with a weighted section on the basis of morality and justice. This response will not serve this individual well in the future.

Are you sure?

Sounds like that kid is going places, like President of the US one day.

 

[Edified]

It's truly amazing that you can write all that and somehow manage to completely miss the point.

Shame has no place in this discussion because deepfakes are about bullying. Whether someone is ashamed of their body or not is some sort of weird smokescreen that some posters seem to think is relevant.

Try focusing on what is important: That we teach respect of others, not descend into some weird-ass discussion about nudity.

Touché

 

[Drop table users;]

The existence of deepfakes actually limits their effect.
once it becomes clear that deepfakes are common then it will be trivial to deny that a picture or video is you, even when it is.

its only an issue now because the existence of deep fakes is not yet commonly known.

 

[Edgar Allan Esquire]

The existence of deepfakes actually limits their effect.
once it becomes clear that deepfakes are common then it will be trivial to deny that a picture or video is you, even when it is.

its only an issue now because the existence of deep fakes is not yet commonly known.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names fakes will never hurt me" always makes me wonder "did you repress the memory of adolescence?" Baseless verbal gossip and the salacious rumor mill is enough to emotionally devastate people. Now we can easily fire off visual accompaniment. Even if the image is fake, it doesn't stop it from being a symbolic campaign poster of whatever story it was based on or the atmosphere of sexual harassment created by it.

 

[42Kodiak42]

Statistically at least, it is clear that when schools make better efforts at education, and give kids actually useful information, it makes a difference in the rates of teen pregnancy, disease, drug use, etc. Kids are dumb and do dumb things, but they're not complete idiots and are capable of making better choices when you actually try to help them do that. So just throwing up your hands and saying we can't do anything about it is useless defeatism.

It's almost like people aren't born with a complete understanding of how things work and need to be taught how things work so they can form accurate assessments of risks, consequences, and how to minimize those risks and consequences when going through with 'dumb ideas' anyway.

All that 'abstinence only' shit goes right out the fucking window the moment somebody's friend says "Well I just pull out and we're still fine." All because those kids weren't taught how risk mitigation and uncertainties work.

 

[deadman12-4]

Not to dispute that this kind of thing could well be a serious and significant problem, but there's a credibility problem with this story. How about reporting genuine research from sources with actual expertise, like the American Psychology Association or Pew Research? This stuff seems suspiciously like marketing materials disguised as research, published by people with an agenda, like the vendors of "security solutions"?

This smells just a bit too much of "think of the children" moral panic, being pushed by people who make a profit from it.

Even the organization whose "survey" is featured in the article, for example, has a reputation in this regard:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization)#Criticism

Thank you. A perfect example of "for the children" when its really "look over there while I get rich".

 

[Deny_Deflect_Disavow]

I am not happy with the world we have created for our children to grow up in.

I think everyone agrees with that. Each generation has its demons. Growing up in the Sixties, nuclear war was a threat. Incineration. Quite a head trip for a six year-old.

What concerns me about deep fakes and generative AI in general is twofold:
1. Nudes: young boys will become desensitized seeing so many nude bodies. Does desensitization lead to greater misogyny?
2. What is real? Second guessing life is not a precursor to trust and innate feelings of security. As we might assume…insecurity leads to mistrust, fear and violence.

 

[jandrese]

Can you imagine the level of cringe when a boy finally gets to third base and goes "Wow babe, the AI totally guessed wrong what you look like naked."

 

[42Kodiak42]

I don't even know they need philosophy - that's pretty abstract. I think what they need is exposure to the stories of harms caused by it - survivor stories of how deeply it hurt them and negatively impacted their lives (maybe leading to things like self harm, drug/alcohol abuse, loss of friends, loss of grades as they were too depressed and anxious to focus on academics, etc), and stories about kids who committed suicide after being bullied, and stories about kids who snapped and committed violence after being bullied.

Coupled with making it clear that if they engage in bullying, they WILL be kicked out of school, (and we need to make sure that happens) - since bullying can ruin people's lives in many ways (e.g. if you take a reasonably smart kid and bully them so bad they do poorly in school, you potentially sabotage their entire adult life, or at least, the early parts of it - e.g. not going to college or trade school, not getting or being able to hold a job, maybe not participating in Arts activities that could have inspired them into a career in the Arts, etc), then it's reasonable that if some students are actively ruining the school experience of other students, you remove them from school - even if that potentially harms THEIR future adult life as a consequence, because if that's what it takes to protect other students, that's what you should do.

The bullies mainly have themselves to blame - though, to be fair often bullies are bullies because they were bullied, e.g. by parents and other people around them - but even when that's the case, the first order of business is protecting other students from them.

Maybe send them to a school for bullies, where they can continue to learn, without being in a position to keep bullying the general population of students, and that school can have special focus on trying to rehabilitate those students, and also, identify students in abusive living conditions and get that addressed.

I'm actually in favor of a more curricular approach here. One of the problems with survivor story time is that the kids might just have no idea what the speaker is talking about between a lack of sex-ed and the euphemisms necessary to speak on such a graphic topic to kids at length. I'm gonna be honest here, D.A.R.E. had me seriously confused for most of my childhood because I learned about medicinal and prescription drugs long before illicit drugs. You also have the added issue where kids might only pick up on the harms that happen at the extremes presented by the survivor stories without realizing that even small sexual transgressions are serious issues.

Sexual abuse is a bit different from many of the other things we tell kids not to do to each other: It's a problem even when it doesn't leave physical marks on another person, and it's something that a kid might do to someone they consider their friend without realizing they shouldn't do it. Kids are stupid and often don't know that much about sex. They need to be taught that even the smaller boundaries are still extremely important because, unlike pain and things that physically hurt, SA is a brand new topic to them.

 

[mmiller7]

Statistically at least, it is clear that when schools make better efforts at education, and give kids actually useful information, it makes a difference in the rates of teen pregnancy, disease, drug use, etc. Kids are dumb and do dumb things, but they're not complete idiots and are capable of making better choices when you actually try to help them do that. So just throwing up your hands and saying we can't do anything about it is useless defeatism.

Yep. And telling them "just don't do it" is ignoring reality that they're gonna sooner or later decide to experiment with a partner whether or not they know what is safe

 

[mmiller7]

I'm actually in favor of a more curricular approach here. One of the problems with survivor story time is that the kids might just have no idea what the speaker is talking about between a lack of sex-ed and the euphemisms necessary to speak on such a graphic topic to kids at length. I'm gonna be honest here, D.A.R.E. had me seriously confused for most of my childhood because I learned about medicinal and prescription drugs long before illicit drugs. You also have the added issue where kids might only pick up on the harms that happen at the extremes presented by the survivor stories without realizing that even small sexual transgressions are serious issues.

Sexual abuse is a bit different from many of the other things we tell kids not to do to each other: It's a problem even when it doesn't leave physical marks on another person, and it's something that a kid might do to someone they consider their friend without realizing they shouldn't do it. Kids are stupid and often don't know that much about sex. They need to be taught that even the smaller boundaries are still extremely important because, unlike pain and things that physically hurt, SA is a brand new topic to them.

Also doesn't help that it seems like there is an endless stream of differing euphemisms used by parents further confusing the information. I've lost track of all the countless things I have hear people call body parts and/or activities. I still have adult friends that once in a while make some joking comment and use some word they heard growing up and I'm like "tf is that" but at least we are all at a point in our lives where as adults we can explain in blunt words exactly what we mean with a serious calm answer when we need to be serious.

Heck even between parents its an issue of confusion it seems...I recall visiting home during college and our family was babysitting the neighbor's kid and the neighbor mom said something or other and we were like "what the heck" and the mom was like "oh she likes to pull her dress up over her head, don't let her do that", I can't recall what words she used anymore but it was something neither I nor my parents had ever heard. I do distinctly remember thinking "how the heck is anyone supposed to know what they are talking about" at the time.

 

[mmiller7]

Children need to be supervised with tools, technology is no different. Handing a smartphone to a child and telling them have fun is basically giving them power tool and hoping no one gets hurt.

Some kids will be responsible and fine, some will hurt themselves or others by accident, and a small number will do it on purpose.

But its so much fun playing with power tools!

I think that was on an episode of Leave It To Beaver... https://litbreviewed.wordpress.com/2019/09/20/episode-38-beaver-runs-away/

 

[Selethorme]

Interesting thought in the middle of the story - fakes that are shared vs fakes that will never be shared.
Putting aside the fakes that are shared (and thus terrible), is a fake that is never shared bad? How is it functionally different than simply fantasizing about the person naked instead? Or drawing a picture of that person naked (something horny teenage art students would obviously "never" do)? Or looking at a non-nude picture of the person? These are all things countless people have done over the years.

edit: Not trying to say some fakes are ok, instead trying to examine why fakes are bad, and thus the idea that maybe all fakes are not equal.

I think this is a really good conversation point. Excepting the case of CSAM, because I do not remotely want to defend that and I don't think there really is a viable defense anyway, this is where some of the conversation should be.

The fakes are made of people without their consent, which is bad. That's true regardless of if they're shared, and I think (hope?) we all agree that consent matters. But I would also think that the majority of the harm around deepfakes come from them being shared and spread, rather than an individual person having them and not sharing them.

The example of a horny art student or a person with substantial photoshop skills is a particularly good one. The technology exists, and even without the technology for photorealism, there's the human imagination. Obviously we get to (literal) thought crime when we say you can't imagine someone naked. But it's really hard to find a consistent line we can draw where that stops. Is it you can imagine but can't draw? You can draw but can't photoshop? You can photoshop but can't deepfake? I'd really appreciate others' thoughts here.

 

[wiz420]

The requirement of consent (and the legal age to grant it) should not be limited to nudity, but for any use of another person's appearance. I think the OP has provided a very reasonable framework.

The previous poster: creating a plausible depiction of another person in a situation they would find offensive or embarrassing.

I might be inclined to agree with you, and say that without consent, you can’t use someone’s appearance in any realistic created image. Who else is to say what a person would find offensive or embarrassing?

The 3 key points are:

1) The image must not be a photo or projection that depicts an actual event or occurrence. The actual means of creation (photoshop vs. AI) is not important. The point is that is that a situation is being depicted that did not happen in reality.

2) The image must be plausible; i.e., could easily be mistaken for a photo or projection that depicts an actual event or occurrence. An obvious artist’s depiction does not count. The point is that the image looks to the casual observer like it captured a situation that happened in reality.

3) The person who is depicted in the image did not provide consent for their appearance to be used in this way.

The idea is to preserve freedom of expression, but make it illegal to make it look like people did things they didn’t do.

This opens up a whole can of worms, but i would have a hard time arguing against a law like this. You shouldn’t make fake pictures of people without their consent, full-stop. I think even using fake voices should be illegal as well, but I wasn’t thinking about that when I wrote the above.

Distributing nude photos of people without their consent is a different matter entirely and is generally already against the law. Dealing with the above situation separately seems much cleaner.

 

[Granadico]

I'm on the side of help teaching kids/teens not to be shamed of their bodies and nudity, etc. but deep fake porn has nothing to do with that. Sure maybe some ultra mature or emotionally intelligent kid might be able to brush off the bullying that comes with it and they'll be left alone since there's not a reaction, but once we get further into the Black Mirror-tier tech nightmare of deepfakes of teenagers doing blatantly illegal/immoral acts (sex with animals, teachers/parents, etc.) then no amount of victim blaming will help the situation.

 

[wiz420]

I'm on the side of help teaching kids/teens not to be shamed of their bodies and nudity, etc. but deep fake porn has nothing to do with that. Sure maybe some ultra mature or emotionally intelligent kid might be able to brush off the bullying that comes with it and they'll be left alone since there's not a reaction, but once we get further into the Black Mirror-tier tech nightmare of deepfakes of teenagers doing blatantly illegal/immoral acts (sex with animals, teachers/parents, etc.) then no amount of victim blaming will help the situation.

Exactly. Many other posters have made this point better than me. This is about consent and bullying. It has nothing to do with feeling shame about one’s body.

 

[JoHBE]

The simplified truth is that there are two choices:

1) draconian filtering, censorship and persecution, always remaining imperfect and with tons of collateral damage

2) reasonable filtering, censorship and law-enforcement, combined with trivializing and desensitizing

That's it gonna be, broadly speaking.

 

[johnlsenchak]

Yes the fake nudes become a problem because they can get in the hands of real pedophiles who if are dumb enough will think that they are the real deal and then share them to with their own sick kind.

 

[adamsc]

You're ignoring the motivation, which is to play on the victim's shame. If such shame were lacking, the aggressor would not find nude pics to be an effective weapon.

This is a common misunderstanding but it’s missing that this is a social attack by someone who also knows their culture’s mores and taboos. The victim doesn’t control other people’s reactions and they don't even necessarily know who’s seen it or how they reacted, so part of the damage is having every social interaction involve some guessing about that.

Even reducing shame is hard to actually do – consider how Trump was cheered on for committing assault and even able to use Harris’ consensual relationships against her! – but we’re never going to get rid of it entirely, and attackers know that. Even if we reached the point where nobody blinked an eye at a naked body – a huge transformation! – they’d adjust what they’re faking to exploit social stigma, stronger taboos, or actual crimes. Even if the target is completely sex/body-positive and everyone they know is super-chill about the idea of them having as much sex as they can – which is already so generations beyond where we are now – that wouldn’t mean that everyone would just laugh off images of them appearing to have some kind of degrading fetish, crawling back to an ex or begging someone unpopular to have them, etc. and it doesn’t mean that law enforcement wouldn’t have to investigate things like incest, abuse, or coercion. Given how well we’re doing with racism and sexism, I don’t even think “feel no shame” is plausible at even the easiest levels.

These kind of threats are effective because the attacker can choose the weapon and time, and the target is unprepared and ends up stuck in a reaction cycle where they don’t even know the full extent of what’s happened. That’s a losing game without increased consequences for the attacker.

 

[sigmasirrus]

This is another one of many cases where demonization of natural things leads to problems. Instead of trying to use legislation, "war on *", and prohibition approaches why don't we just stop being afraid of being nude? Why don't we teach respect for others?
Shame is a human invention, after all. Let's uninvent it.

Or maybe we just stop over sexualizing everything and especially young ones and emphasize humanity and empathy.

 

[NotYourUsername]

a survey of 1,200 young people ages 13–20 that found that 84 percent of young people "overwhelmingly recognize" deepfake nudes as abuse that harms the victim depicted. (...) "It really is both surprising and really hopeful to me that the kids have clarity on this subject," Stroebel told Ars, especially compared to the 2023 survey results finding that many adult men don't think there's anything wrong with fake nudes.

"Adult men" is referring to this survey mentioned earlier in the article, right?

with 74 percent of 1,522 US male deepfake porn users reporting they "don't feel guilty" about viewing it.

This is rather an apples-and-oranges comparison, isn't it? Of course people who view this stuff are way more likely to try to justify it than the general population.

 

[jandrese]

Or maybe we just stop over sexualizing everything and especially young ones and emphasize humanity and empathy.

I'm not sure asking teenagers to not be horny has ever worked.

 

[Uragan]

Yes the fake nudes become a problem because they can get in the hands of real pedophiles who if are dumb enough will think that they are the real deal and then share them to with their own sick kind.

So you’re saying that they aren’t a problem if they don’t fall into the hands of “real pedophiles”? Are you implying that there are “fake” pedophiles out there? Why isn’t the generation of deepfakes problematic in upon itself?

 

[Uragan]

I'm not sure asking teenagers to not be horny has ever worked.

The OP didn’t say that we should be “asking teenagers to not be horny”.

 

[Tungsten666]

Regarding the phones in class issue - I'm a Univ. prof and it it's truly depressing how shackled young people are to the things (full-on grownups too!). I see kids daily who can't keep on task for more than 2-3 minutes without needing to suck at the teet for 5 minutes or more. It's like the Gen-Z blankie or binkie.

 

[Ishkabibbel]

This is another one of many cases where demonization of natural things leads to problems. Instead of trying to use legislation, "war on *", and prohibition approaches why don't we just stop being afraid of being nude? Why don't we teach respect for others?
Shame is a human invention, after all. Let's uninvent it.

If they weren't taught to be ashamed of their bodies it would be no big deal.

Can we please stop excusing deepfakes by conflating privacy with body acceptance, like it’s some sort of virtue to not care if there’s nude pics (fake or otherwise) of you floating around?

It’s basically victim blaming at this point.

 

[benjianth]

I’m ok with generative pornography provided that it’s depicting a fictional character or a public figure, both of an appropriate age.

Honestly, even when I was a horny teenager in 2003 I couldn’t understand the appeal of faked celebrity nudes because they looked so grainy and unappealing.

Edit: bring on the downvotes!

 

[Zeppos]

I think a big part of this is on the utter-shit education that they do in schools.

What I recall in school was basically "all the protections can fail, the only solution is don't do it, and if you get caught wanting or trying to you'll be shunned or get stds and be ugly and alone". And they didn't teach how to use stuff.

So why would anyone seek out any form of protection after being told all of them can fail, and also told if they're caught trying to engage in such activities they will be shunned or get sick? And also based on what we learned, you'd think that every disease is identifiable by some physical deformation, so also why worry about that?

Sure, any "CAN" fail. But they didn't talk to us about the success/failure rates of use, proper use, what sort of failures, the idea you could use more than one form of protection to reduce risk, if there's any way to get medical testing (that's still clear as mud among so many adult friends I talk to beyond "you get doctor checkups sometimes right")...so much stuff they could have explained that would actually be beneficial.

I have to imagine the education on taboo topics has not significantly improved with the increasingly politicized stuff trying to attack educational institutions.

I learned more in college Psych 101 class with ONE lecture that we got side-tracked and talking about stuff as adults (and the professor was open to a sidebar discussion) and then someone in class happened to have a pack of condoms that we learned they came with instructions for use - which out of the whole class of adults in the room only like 2 people admitted to knowing they came with directions. They even got the directions out and the class talked about them as adults.

P.S. I also wish that school had covered shit like how to figure out taxes. Which has been on my mind the past couple weekends...I hate DOING the paperwork for taxes 100x more than paying them.

Belgium here, we got that lecture when we were 12. Condom failure rate is in the single digit percentage range (from memory). We were recommended to do the "Dubble Dutch" approach. (condom + anticonception) other techniques were discussed with pros and cons. Condom use was demonstrated with a mock up. We were then served a bunch of pictures of the effects of all sorts of STDs. Big projector screen, high resolution close ups. Dias in those days. We were very motivated not to get any of these. They moved this up to a younger age these days, but start with a less explicit program. Cheers!

 

[Heavens]

Children need to be supervised with tools, technology is no different. Handing a smartphone to a child and telling them have fun is basically giving them power tool and hoping no one gets hurt.

Some kids will be responsible and fine, some will hurt themselves or others by accident, and a small number will do it on purpose.

This.
The problem I see among my peers is that they're the inbetween generation.
While I grew up with a Gameboy and witnessed the rise and fall of MySpace, I'm not that fluent in Instagram, TikTok and Co. but I'm interested in tech and I will educate myself for when my twin boys get into that age.
Now we switch over to exhibit B, barely knows how to get the internet working and is totally oblivious to the fact that you can order drugs on Telegram groups.
He has to teach his kids how to navigate the treacherous depths of the internet, because it's hit or miss if they tackle that in school as it's not officially on any educational plan.

Any kid with first hand experience with deepfakes etc. will probably pass that knowledge to his kids, but the millennials are the ones getting sidelined by tech.
Creating fake nudes is as easy as adding anime cat ears on SnapChat these days, and we need to teach kids that you don't do that, just as we learned to not drill a hole in the neighbors fishing boat.

The takes are high here, while we only got an angry neighbor and a bill to fix the boat, kids these days might end up in jail for possesion of child pornography, even if it's fake.

 

[RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha]

You cannot even stop the "teach-student" problems of the few that think, "its ok to sleep with him/her! He/She is so mature for their age" and either the male teacher impregnates the female HS student, or the male teen student impregnates the female teacher. And its all downhill from there.
Parents need to be... PARENTS! Good kids know not do this. Bad parents or missing parent(s) are the reason teens grow to be pervs or insensitive adults.