A deepfake is a video or picture of someone in which their face or body has been digitally altered so that they appear to be someone else, typically used maliciously or to spread false information.

A famous celebrity, Taylor Swift, has been deepfaked lately. Taylor’s Swift photo was changed to an explicit image of her. A deepfake makes it appear that the person did something that they didn’t do. The deepfake of Taylor Swift was on X Twitter for 19 hours and it already had 47 million views when it was finally taken down. It was reported to be fake many different times before they finally took it down. From 

Deepfaking is a problem that we even have at our school because of kids taking each other’s pictures without their permission and just trying to be funny. The immediate reaction of Freedom students are that they are going to get their phones taken by the teacher and/or teachers, and not thinking about how they just invaded other people’s privacy.

 “Some people want their picture taken and some don’t, but if they don’t you have invaded their privacy, so you’re looking at an after school detention or a Saturday detention depending on the situation,” our middle principal, Mr. Griffith said.

“It’s come up I would say a few times this year. Sometimes there are situations where students have had their picture taken and then you search someone’s phone and you don’t find it on there. Sometimes it can be hard to prove.”

“A lot of the time I think it’s to be funny, a lot of the kids are trying to find something that they can put on social media.” 

“If someone is allowing them to take their picture then its fine, but they don’t have their permission then it’s just rude,” said 5 grader Lucy Tyler.