Mother charged with deepfake plot against daughter’s cheerleading rivals

A Pennsylvania woman has been accused of creating “deepfake” pictures of her daughter’s cheerleading rivals, doctoring photos and video in an attempt to get them kicked off the squad, officials said.

What are deepfakes – and how can you spot them?

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The Bucks county district attorney’s office last week charged Raffaela Spone, 50, with three misdemeanor counts of cyber harassment of a child and related offenses.

Spone manipulated photos from social media of three girls on the Victory Vipers cheerleading squad in Chalfont to make it appear they were drinking, smoking and even nude, investigators said.

Spone also sent messages with the so-called “deepfake” pictures to the the girls and suggested they kill themselves, officials said.

In January, the Guardian defined deepfakes as “the 21st century’s answer to Photoshopping, [using] a form of artificial intelligence called deep learning to make images of fake events, hence the name deepfake”.

Matt Weintraub, the Bucks county district attorney, told the New York Times: “This technology is not only very prevalent, but easy to use. This is something your neighbor down the street can use, and that’s very scary.”

Henry Ajder, a deepfakes researcher, told the Times people should not panic about deepfakes and the threat they pose. But he added: “We, as a global society, need to prepare at different levels.”

Spone’s attorney, Robert Birch, told WPVI-TV he could not comment because he said the DA had not presented any evidence.

“She has absolutely denied what they’re charging her with and because of the fact that this has hit the press, she has received death threats,” Birch said.

“She has had to go to the police herself, they have a report. Her life has been turned upside down.”

The cheerleading team expressed sympathy for the families involved.

“Victory Vipers has always promoted a family environment and we are sorry for all individuals involved,” gym owners Mark McTague and Kelly Cramer said in a statement. “We have very well-established policies, and a very strict anti-bullying policy in our program.”