Frequently Asked Questions

A deepfake is an image, video, or audio recording that artificial intelligence has altered to make someone appear to do or say something they never did. The word combines deep learning and fake. Most deepfakes circulating today are sexual and target women and girls, which is why the harm reaches far beyond a single fake image.

It depends on your state and on what the deepfake shows. The federal Take It Down Act now requires platforms to remove non-consensual intimate images within 48 hours, and more than 25 states have passed their own laws covering criminal penalties and civil remedies. Our Law Tracker maps exactly what protection exists where you live.

Non-consensual intimate imagery, often shortened to NCII, is a sexual or nude image of a person shared without their permission. It includes both real photos leaked without consent and AI-generated fakes that never depicted a real moment. Many older state laws only covered real images and left deepfake victims with no clear path to protection.

Start by documenting the content with screenshots and URLs before it disappears, then use the platform's reporting tool to request removal under the Take It Down Act. If the victim is a minor, contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children through its CyberTipline. Our Take Action page walks through each step.

Women and girls carry the overwhelming share of the harm. In schools, the pattern is peer on peer, where a classmate takes an ordinary photo and runs it through a nudification app. Fifteen percent of students report knowing about AI-generated explicit images of a classmate, which shows this reaches ordinary students and not only public figures.

The National Coalition Against Deepfake Abuse is a nonpartisan coalition that tracks deepfake legislation across all 50 states, documents abuse incidents in schools, and builds the technical infrastructure to stop non-consensual imagery from spreading. Our work has informed state bills and reached the United Nations.

Yes, though it takes persistence. Platforms are legally required to remove reported non-consensual intimate images, and detection tools can find copies that spread to other sites. We are building Hashbank, a perceptual hashing system modeled on the technology that stops child abuse material, so that once an image is flagged it can be blocked everywhere at once.

You can join our Survivor Alliance, support the coalition, or bring our advocacy to your own state. Students, researchers, and policymakers all have a place in this work. Every person who documents a case or pushes a bill forward strengthens the evidence base that protects the next victim.