Last year, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N. J., when a political cheerful, became appropriate again by blocking the Take It Down Act, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. The costs may have made deepfakes of revenge porn involving juveniles illegally generated AI. Booker filed a last-minute issue to the republican act that prevented its passage when it was up for vote. He declined to elaborate what his actual criticism was.
This has led observers to assume that Booker’s principal purpose was to refuse Cruz a legislative success during an vote, since Booker is great friends with Rep. Colin Allred, Cruz’s player in this year’s Texas Senate race. In order to believe he would n’t do this, Cruz should understandably sound off on the fact that “he needs to actually explain his objection in order to believe he is n’t standing up here denying victims of this abuse relief just to score partisan political points.”
Even more furious was 15-year-old Francesca Mani, who, according to Time newspaper, “learned that kids in her school had used AI technology to create sexually explicit pictures of Mani and her sexual classmates”. Despite being one of Booker’s constituents in New Jersey, she ended up working with the Texas senator to bring justice to the victims of this” sextortion” and harassment.
If Cruz’s expenses amounted to pointless social virtue signaling, Booker’s opposition might have more merits. But, as Mani’s practice attests, the Take It Down Act actually does tackle a growing problem. Cruz also made reference to the dreadful tale of Gavin Guffey, who was threatened by a scammer with publishing explicit images of him to his peers. Finally, he committed murder. Although the photos were true, not AI-generated, the effect on his status and emotional well-being was essentially the similar.
Kids Need Congressional Assistance
Despite this, it’s tempting for some to dismiss the entire topic as one that could be resolved more effectively by careful parenting and safer college settings than by another federal law. For thinking is really mistaken because I am both a family and a high school English instructor.
We are also past the point of handling online abuse and harassment internally, which is primarily due to the fact that much of what falls under the category of bullying is much worse than the usual child crime. This is nothing less than the sexual exploitation and pornography production, both of which are now criminally punished for adults who receive lengthy jail sentences.
And at the moment, there’s much that parents and teachers can really do about this. Now we have many expert classes over the problems of flirting, cyberbullying, and everything in between, and most parents are also knowledgeable of the online predators and what can occur online. Nevertheless, even the most careful student can fall victim if a predator is motivated enough.
Compare this to the relatively unadulterated years of my early 1990s and early 2000s as a student. Anti-bullying campaigns and strict protocols for bullying on campus were largely ignored because zero-tolerance policies made my school feel like a repressive police state. Since cyberbullying exists outside the scope of the majority of adult supervision, it is impossible to replicate today.
Thus, there needs to be some legal recourse for the victims of cyberbullying and sexual exploitation, which is why Cruz’s bill was so important. Sadly, for obviously political reasons, Cory” Spartacus” Booker torpedoed this effort.
How Democrats Operate
Ironic ( but unsurprising ) is that this type of political sabotage is the same thing that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris consistently accuses Donald Trump of doing with the border. Trump directed Republicans in Congress to vote against the Democrats ‘ border bill last year in her telling to avert his opponent’s weakness on the front. However, Trump and the rest of the GOP had a lot of compelling arguments against the bill, the most compelling being that Biden and Harris already have the power to close the border right now.
With all the hypocrisy and projection aside, Allred will now accuse Cruz of “getting nothing done” as a senator so he can snag a few more votes. It’s difficult to see such a charge coming anywhere because he’s trying this on a well-known conservative like Ted Cruz and not an empty-suit like the other Texan senator John Cornyn. More importantly, it’s just another example of how Democrats operate and what the public can expect from their vote in November.