Ep 1194 ｜ Parents of Teens： Beware of AI-Generated Blackmail ｜ Guest： Elliston Berry
Episode Stats
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178.9381
Summary
Ellen Berry was a 14-year-old who was the victim of a deep, fake pornographic image of her being circulated around her high school. Her story is tragic and compelling, but God has used it as a launchpad for legislation that has passed Congress called the Take It Down Act. Today, we re not only hearing from her and her mom about why this legislation is necessary, but also we re going to set it up with some important context about what is happening in the pornography industry right now and how Christians should view it.
Transcript
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Ellison Berry was a 14-year-old who was the victim of an AI deep fake pornographic image
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of her being circulated around her high school.
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Her story is tragic and compelling, but God has used it as a launchpad for really important
00:00:18.900
legislation that has passed Congress called the Take It Down Act.
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Today, we're not only hearing from her and her mom why this legislation is necessary,
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but also we're going to set it up with some really important context about what is happening
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in the pornography industry right now and how Christians should view all of this.
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Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
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Okay, we've got to talk about some serious stuff today, some dark stuff today, but it's
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really important, especially as parents that we really understand what's going on.
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And like we talked about with Andrew Klavan earlier this week, looking at objective evil
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straight in the eyes can be really important in drawing us towards what is good and right
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And when we confront the reality of evil, we can either become paranoid or we can become
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anxious, we can become fearful ourselves, or we can be strengthened.
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We can realize that part of the reason that God has placed us on this earth is to make the
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world around us better for his glory and the good of those he has placed in our lives.
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And one of the things that the church has done best for thousands of years that we have
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to take the mantle up on is the defense of children, is the defense of those who do not have a voice
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that includes embryos in a lab, that includes babies inside the womb, that includes children
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And unfortunately, a tale as almost old as time, certainly when we look back thousands
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of years, we see this in the pagan world, the trend of using children for sexual gratification
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I've talked a lot about this book by historian Owen Backey, When Children Became People, and
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he details just the horrible mistreatment of children in ancient pagan Greece and Rome.
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Sold into slavery, they were sent to exposure hills when they were unwanted newborn children.
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They were literally placed on these hills to die from things like hypothermia or being
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eaten by wild animals, or they were sold into slavery or into sex slavery.
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They were used by the powerful, by the rich as prostitutes.
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And it was the introduction of Christians 2,000 years ago, their gospel, their, what was at
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the time, the upside-down worldview that changed everything, not only for children, but for
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women, for the poor, for those truly on the margins of society.
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Ancient pagan Greece and Rome said the logos is what determines someone's worth, your full
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And only the adult free male was seen as having that capacity, whereas children were seen as
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So they were viewed as subhuman, and they were treated as such.
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But Christians coming in with this concept of the Imago Dei, coming in with this radically
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equalizing gospel that everyone is equally dead in their sin and can be made alive by grace
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And as the centuries passed, the treatment of children went from subjugation to a place
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of special dignity because of their powerlessness, because Christians serve a God who came to
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earth as an embryo, who was welcomed by the kicks of an unborn John the Baptist, who was
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welcomed into the world as a newborn, who, as an adult, said,
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let the little children come to me, even against the protestations of his disciples, that is
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And not only that, Jesus is described in John 1 as the capital L logos, the word made flesh.
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So the capital L logos turned the pagan philosophies of ancient Greece and Rome on its head, who
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said the lowercase L logos determines someone's worth.
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But the capital L logo says, no, your worth is determined by me.
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And the Christians who believed that changed everything for children.
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And it is still our task to do so today as we devolve into what seems like, at least from
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my perspective, paganism, not even atheism, but paganism.
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As we allow and celebrate child sacrifice, we also see the subjugation and objectification
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And we see that most prominently through places like Pornhub.
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Nicholas Kristof is a reporter for the New York Times, and he has been a very brave reporter.
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But he wrote an article, The Children of Pornhub, back in 2020, which sparked a lot of change,
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positive change, both legislatively and just in the industry.
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And he has published a new piece in the New York Times that came out just last week about
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how Pornhub's employees actually deal with child sex abuse material.
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And if you don't believe in evil, you just need to read this article.
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It's very relevant for our conversation that we're about to have with Elliston Berry.
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So documents that were accidentally leaked to Nicholas Kristof, or they were leaked and
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then Nicholas Kristof got a hold of them, show that Pornhub hosted videos tagged with
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terms like, this is very disturbing, like 12-year-old, with one video of a 15-year-old being, this
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is very dark, it's even hard for me to say, but it's just the truth of what's going on.
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And if these children are enduring it, we have to be able to talk about it.
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It was uploaded to Pornhub, and it was viewed widely, leading her to being shamed and dropping
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Pornhub delayed or avoided removing flagged child sex abuse material.
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So this was content that they knew was child sex abuse material, with 706,000 videos flagged
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for review, some requiring 16 flags before taking action, and they didn't take action
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So Kristof wrote that internal memos seem to show executives obsessed with making money
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by attracting the biggest audiences, including pedophiles.
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In one memo, Pornhub managers proposed words to be banned from video descriptions, such as
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infant and kitty, while recommending that the site should still include to allow brutal childhood
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One internal note says that a person who posted a sex abuse material of a child shouldn't be
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banned from the site because, quote, the user made money, made themselves money, made the
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Staff acknowledged in these memos that the presence of child sex abuse material with internal
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discussions joking about it and debating whether to allow childhood as a search term.
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A class action lawsuit filed in 2023 exposed Pornhub's monetization of child sex abuse material
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with tags like young and teenager being highly profited and Pornhub doing absolutely nothing
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There are other parts of this article that shows memos of Pornhub employees joking about
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One employee saying, we shouldn't CC our manager when we are talking about child sex abuse
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And the other employee says, we don't want our manager to know about this.
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No, they didn't want people to know about this.
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The employees of Pornhub know that there are children and there are babies that are being
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sexually abused on their website, and they won't do anything about it, at least at the
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And that is why they oppose every single regulation and every single form of protection that is out
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there because they know that they are going to lose money on it.
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And they see it as, well, if there is a demand for it, then we will just supply it.
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If the people want it, I'll do it, but I'm not responsible for it.
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Nicholas Kristof said that he has never received more death threats after an article than when
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he published the article in 2020 exposing how Pornhub monetizes child rape.
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And never has he received more death threats than when he threatened the porn industry.
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And you think, imagine thinking that Satan isn't real.
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Imagine thinking that there isn't a print of the power of the air.
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The spirits that are now at work in the sons of disobedience, says Ephesians 2.
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Imagine not believing in Ephesians 6 that there is a spiritual battle going on between good
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And imagine not having hope that we have a God who promises to come back and avenge the
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We have a God who promises that he is going to redeem all of it, that he is going to do
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away with evildoers and the main evil one forever and ever.
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Like, aren't we so thankful for the gospel that God is going to do something about all of
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00:12:00.340
Now, this Take It Down Act that we are about to talk about with Elliston Berry, we actually
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recorded this interview a while ago, so I have an update for some context before we get into
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But just to give you a little intro about who she is, she was 14 years old, a student at
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Aledo High School in Texas, when a classmate took an image off of her social media where
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she was fully clothed and used AI to make it look like she was naked.
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So these deep, fake, naked pictures of her, the perpetrator was a 15-year-old classmate.
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He also created these fake images of seven other classmates.
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And this was a really difficult thing, obviously, for her and her family, but also in the hesitance
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of the school and authorities to really try to find a way to do anything about it.
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Elliston Berry joined President Trump as a guest at his speech before Congress a few months
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ago, as he talked about what really is a bipartisan issue, and that is protecting people, especially
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minors, from the predation of pornography and these kinds of deep, fake images.
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Without further ado, here is Elliston and her mom, Anna.
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Okay, before we get into the conversation with Elliston, which we recorded a few weeks ago,
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I want to give you an update on this Take It Down Act.
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It was just signed by President Trump into law on Monday.
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Melania Trump has been a big supporter of this legislation.
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As you will hear, Elliston and her mom, Anna, were a big part of the passage of this bill,
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and we should be very grateful to President Trump for signing it into law.
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You'll hear more about it now and the dangers that led to the need for this kind of law.
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So thank you, President Trump, for making this happen.
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And also, you'll hear how grateful we should be to Elliston and her mom for their courage
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So without further ado, here is Elliston Berry.
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Elliston and Anna, thank you so much for taking the time to join me.
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Yeah, I was a freshman in high school, so this was the most important time.
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I had volleyball games and football games, and I woke up the weekend or the week right
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after homecoming, so I woke up with messages from my friend notifying me that these images
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So she had sent me a screenshot of a collage of photos, two innocent Instagram photos, one
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of her and one of me, and then two nude photos, one of her and one of me.
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She made this collage just to prove that these images weren't real, and honestly, she was
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scared, I was scared, and that whole morning, it was terrifying.
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It was really, really scary just trying to navigate.
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Like, when you saw those pictures, you knew that they weren't your pictures, that you hadn't
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So, like, what was your first thought of, like, how in the heck did this happen?
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I didn't believe they were, I didn't even believe this situation was happening to me.
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Obviously, the photos weren't real, but I was like, no one could ever do this.
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Why would anyone do this to me or to my friend?
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I just, I remember trying to ignore it and, like, forget about it, but, like, right after
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stepping out of my bedroom, I just, like, broke down.
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And I didn't even know how to tell my parents because I didn't want them to think that these
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I never wanted that pressure or that even thought about me out there.
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And, but thankfully, um, the photo was an Instagram, Instagram photo.
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So everyone that has followed my Instagram knows the original picture.
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And obviously my mom keeps up with all my social media.
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So she recognizes the original photo and she was like, I know this isn't real, but she immediately
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And she was with the administrator and with the police officer and my principal, um, just
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trying to get my story out or write down what happened, try to figure out what was going
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So at that point, did you know that the photo had been shared on Snapchat and shared to other
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Or did you just think that you and your friends or you and your one friend were the only people
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that had really seen it in addition to the person who made the pictures?
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Well, she sent me that and then said, this is going around.
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People are sending this to me, but don't worry.
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I did get an Instagram DM from a girl that I'm not friends with.
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I have one class with her, but we're not close.
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And she was like, Hey, I have to tell you something.
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And it was the same situation telling me that these photos were going around.
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And if this girl that I don't know is talking to me about this, I was like, everyone
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I had to go to volleyball practice that morning and none of my classmates knew about what was
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going on, but they could tell that I was, I was extremely upset and extremely disturbed.
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And I went to my second period because my first period was volleyball and I couldn't even focus.
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Thankfully, I was able to leave that class early because I got called down to go and tell what
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But as I was walking, another one of my good friends stopped me and was, and said, I'm so
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And in that moment, I realized everyone has seen these.
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I've gotten three people in the span of two hours talking to me about this.
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And I was like, my entire high school had seen these.
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Just the mental block and the mental aspect of this.
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I was 14 years old and everyone had seen this of me.
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Because you said that you didn't want to tell your parents, but then you felt very quickly
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It's Monday morning and we're ready to start the week, you know?
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And in that moment, again, I was like, this can't be real.
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You know, and I'm at that point looking at her picture and then the nude picture.
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You know, her high school's over 2,400 students.
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And then in that moment realizing, okay, somebody decided her fate and I can't, I can't help
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So my husband and I are just like, I mean, literally sitting there going, what do we do
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So of course I went into mama bear mode, you know, and I'm like, okay, you go to volleyball,
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And so met the other parents up there at the time because we're just like, we, we didn't
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So you called the parent of the other girl who had sent the photo to her and y'all decided
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The accounts that it came from had our school in it.
00:20:01.540
Oh, so y'all did know at that point, the account that was sending it out.
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You just didn't know who was associated with the account.
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So that's why you went to the school right away.
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They just kind of looked at us like we were crazy.
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So the app that this kid used, he didn't just take her face and put it on some kind
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And so we're sitting there trying to tell them this is a big deal.
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You know, and at the time he had not done it on school property.
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So they were like, well, I'm not really sure we can do anything.
00:21:02.740
And they still didn't know what to do with it either because nobody knew how to find him.
00:21:13.340
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After we went and I gave my statement to the police, I went home.
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I couldn't even focus on the one class I went to.
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I didn't go to school that next Tuesday, either.
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And that Tuesday morning, we woke up and more girls.
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So, it was now up to eight girls, eight more nude photos from Instagram, all of my friend group.
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I was like, is this happening to her because she was with me?
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I was scared and I didn't even know what to do.
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And the account that was sending these photos was texting people from my school awful things.
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Saying, targeting like one of the girls and saying, oh, she's evil or saying all these mean things about her.
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And then kind of bullying us and tormenting us and just overall wanting to ruin us.
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And he was sending these out to our entire school.
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And how Snapchat works is you have to accept it.
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So, right when someone would accept this, he would just send them like spam.
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People I wasn't friends with were receiving these photos.
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And I remember that Tuesday, I had to go to school or I had to go for at least my volleyball because I had a volleyball game.
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So, a lot of the school I attended was mandatory for me to play, to get playing time, to be like a good teammate.
00:24:37.820
He had said he wanted to go out with a bang, making threats to us about.
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This is like the message that he was sending people.
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And he, so people were starting to ask him like, why are you doing this?
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You know, why are you hurting the girls in this way?
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And that's when he was responding to, I want to ruin the girls.
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So, then, you know, in today's world, I'm calling the school going, this could be a
00:25:10.240
And did the police know about that threat, too?
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But they're still like, we don't know what to do.
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I mean, they didn't, they just really didn't seem to take it serious at any level.
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And I'm like, okay, we've got the situation with the girls and the nudes.
00:25:26.200
And then now we've got a threat that he wants to go out with a bang, which he could come to
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So, the whole situation was so mind-numbing to me and all the parents were like, is no
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And that Tuesday morning when we were on the way to school and when we had first heard
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that he had set and made that threat, we called the school and my mom was like, I'm not taking
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She was calling my friends' parents, parents that weren't even involved in this because
00:26:10.380
this was a serious matter and there's school shootings and bombings and everything like
00:26:18.900
So, I didn't go that Tuesday and that Wednesday was PSAT testing.
00:26:22.080
So, everyone's going to be in, is going to be guaranteed to be in the school.
00:26:26.120
We're going to be without our phones because we're all testing in the morning.
00:26:32.380
If he was going to do something, this is when to do it.
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So, obviously, us and all the girls were freaking out and the one thing that I will
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give my credit, I will give my school credit is they allowed us to be in a separate room.
00:26:50.480
So, we were able, all eight of the girls, we were in a separate room taking our tests
00:27:16.240
And so, I had to go to school on Thursday because of volleyball.
00:27:23.380
I had, I had a, I made a commitment to my team and I couldn't, I couldn't stop.
00:27:27.700
But that whole day, I was texting my mom, is there any way you can come and get me?
00:27:37.320
And the whole day, I was down at my counselor's office.
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There's one good counselor at my school and she's amazing.
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The announcement was going off, this is not a drill.
00:28:01.600
A broadcasting system went on all over the TVs saying hide.
00:28:08.840
Which we still to this day don't really even know what happened.
00:28:13.080
But it was like, okay, this week is like out of.
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So, the one good thing that happened out of it was that while they were on lockdown,
00:28:24.320
this kid decided to go online to his account and on school Wi-Fi,
00:28:39.680
So, it wasn't connected necessarily to what he had already said.
00:28:46.600
Because if he hadn't done that, I don't know that we would have ever caught him.
00:28:52.380
So, I don't know exactly how the technology works.
00:28:55.080
I do know when you connect to Wi-Fi, you are making your identity vulnerable to everyone who,
00:29:01.160
you know, especially the person who owns that Wi-Fi.
00:29:08.620
So, I guess because my school's very, like, they don't want you to be on any social media or anything.
00:29:16.540
So, when you're on this Wi-Fi, it kind of, like, blocks certain things.
00:29:20.180
So, when you're on it, it can sense what apps you're on.
00:29:26.860
So, he was on Snapchat and on this account and sending images, I guess, to scare us that this guy's active on a Snapchat account while we're in lockdown.
00:29:39.920
But it was truly a blessing in disguise that he did that.
00:29:43.780
He was on the school Wi-Fi and sending these photos to people, posting them, things like that.
00:29:49.440
And because he was on that school Wi-Fi and he was on school property, he was on the school grounds, one of my school's police officers was able to track his IP address and take it back to the student that did it and catch him.
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So when we were sitting in class and, like, our seating arrangements were alphabetical, I was seated by him.
00:31:52.480
And when this first happened and people started suspecting him, I immediately was like, no, he would not do that.
00:32:07.980
So especially when I was sitting in class, in my math class, with him and this other kid, I'm always talking and I'm always engaging.
00:32:18.700
He's very, like, techie, technology, everything like that.
00:32:23.800
So I kind of saw my brother in him because they both had that fascination for technology.
00:32:29.280
And I'd always had a kind of soft spot for him.
00:32:32.960
My brother, he didn't really do well in, like, my Alito school either.
00:32:43.400
And I didn't want anyone to experience what my brother experienced.
00:32:46.540
So someone that I saw my brother in, I wanted to make sure that he would never go through anything like that.
00:32:55.220
We definitely wouldn't hang out out of school or anything.
00:32:59.240
You wanted him to feel included and seen because you felt like your brother had kind of been excluded and pushed out.
00:33:18.060
And a lot of the other girls, they'd also talked to him.
00:33:22.220
There was no bad blood or anything that had gone between him and any of the other girls.
00:33:30.360
Just, it was so bizarre why he did what he did.
00:33:45.060
So we still haven't really heard much about the whole situation.
00:33:49.460
There's nothing that law enforcement can do here.
00:33:51.800
Well, they did charge him with a Class A misdemeanor for harmful distribution of underage material.
00:34:05.840
And then it'll fall off his record when he's 18.
00:34:08.300
Gosh, it just feels like the punishment should be a lot heftier than that.
00:34:12.080
And the sheriff's department that actually pressed the charges, they were like, we just don't have any laws.
00:34:17.320
We don't know how to, we don't know what to do with them.
00:34:20.420
So they kind of did the only thing they thought they could do.
00:34:23.420
And so, because there's no laws and he's a minor, that was the issue.
00:34:31.260
When they knew on that Friday who he was, they're like, we've caught him.
00:34:52.340
I mean, she did some social media posts about, I'm worried he's going to be bullied now.
00:35:07.260
And, you know, we're just going to pretend like it didn't happen.
00:35:10.380
It would take every bit of self-control in me, every bit of the Holy Spirit, not to
00:35:30.420
So you said that there's no real laws on the books.
00:35:33.220
And I'm guessing that's why you were a part of this Take It Down Act that is going through
00:35:43.000
So this is, it was introduced by Ted Cruz on June 18th, 2024.
00:35:53.280
And then you guys were a part of a roundtable on this on March 3rd with Melania Trump, right?
00:36:02.160
Well, when this first happened, we didn't know what to do.
00:36:08.780
So she was texting and she was emailing everybody.
00:36:12.280
Anyone that had an inbox, she was emailing and telling our story.
00:36:21.220
And his team got back to my mom and they emailed back and was like, this is a serious matter.
00:36:29.880
And in the beginning of June, he flew my mom and my brother up to Washington, D.C.
00:36:34.480
And they were able to write up the Take It Down Act.
00:36:38.660
He realized that my photos were up on social media for nine months.
00:36:44.760
So my photos were up from October until June when he was able to get in touch with Snapchat
00:36:49.940
and took the account that linked all of the photos of me and all of my friends.
00:36:54.420
He were able to get them all down, which was, it was so refreshing.
00:36:57.580
I mean, anyone could have seen these and it was creating a weight on my shoulders.
00:37:03.840
But it wasn't with the help of, it was with the help of a political member.
00:37:07.200
But we were trying to get in touch with Snapchat for months trying to get these images down.
00:37:15.280
He has two daughters right in between, right under me and right above me, like age-wise.
00:37:19.300
So he couldn't even, he has a heart for this subject.
00:37:22.940
So we were able to get in contact with him and then write up the Take It Down Act.
00:37:26.540
And then later in June, we were able to go back up there and get to talk with him.
00:37:30.620
And we were able to promote this bill as much as possible in order for it to be, for it to be passed.
00:37:38.080
So it was really important for him to bring on Democratic support as well so that it was a bipartisan bill.
00:37:45.380
So it was super, super important that it be bipartisan.
00:37:56.440
And that, for me, I felt like I didn't have a voice and no one was listening.
00:38:02.840
So, and, you know, local police were like, if we had a law, we could do something about that.
00:38:09.560
And AI is progressing so quickly that we can't, you know, we're just reactive to it.
00:38:14.720
We can't be proactive because it's increasing so much.
00:38:18.080
So we were very thankful that Cruz and then Amy Klobuchar, who is a Democrat, she came on board as well.
00:38:24.660
So that it really started just becoming this real bipartisan bill that we could try to pass.
00:38:30.300
So that would provide, you know, it would make it a felon.
00:38:33.840
So this kid, even being a minor, would have jail time attached to that and then hold big tech accountable as well.
00:38:50.700
I still think that, like, the legislature, the state legislatures also, I know that this is a federal law and that's good.
00:38:57.660
But I would like to see even stricter regulations on the state level.
00:39:02.020
They're just, I mean, law is always behind the pace of technology.
00:39:08.200
And we really need legislatures to recognize that and to do what they can to be ahead of it.
00:39:18.940
I mean, this could risk your ability to earn a livelihood in the future.
00:39:24.580
Not yours, hopefully, but just in general for victims of this.
00:39:28.900
And I thank God that you had your parents, the squeaky wheel of your mom.
00:39:34.400
But think about all of the young people that have no communities or who aren't believed and don't have people that will go to bat for them.
00:39:42.560
That's where we have to have the law step in and say, OK, even if you don't have other grownups protecting you, the law is going to protect you.
00:39:51.720
And that was kind of like my motivation behind all this.
00:39:59.120
And when this first happened, I immediately went to my small group leaders.
00:40:04.060
One of the girls that was involved, her mom is another small group leader.
00:40:16.780
We were told that we shouldn't tell people we should just push it, put it under the rug.
00:40:21.280
Alito, my school, they just want to put it under the rug.
00:40:24.140
Just they didn't want to ruin my school's reputation.
00:40:26.740
But it got to a point where it felt like this whole situation was gone and that we were just victims of this, that we had to deal with the we had to deal with the fate that he decided for us.
00:40:38.100
And something about that just did not sit right with me.
00:40:41.720
So when my mom started getting in contact with all these people, it made me realize that God has given me an opportunity to talk about what happened and to use my voice.
00:40:54.980
And I've always been taught to be firm in my opinions and to use my voice.
00:41:01.080
And thankfully, I grew up in a household that really taught me that what I feel and how I feel matters and that to fight for what's right.
00:41:11.220
So when all these opportunities started appearing, I just knew that it was the Lord putting this in front of me.
00:41:19.040
And growing up, I always knew that I wanted to help people, like be a therapist.
00:41:23.740
But ever since this, it's really shown me that my future could be as an advocate for the people that don't get the ability to use their voice.
00:41:32.240
And to be someone that people can look up to for hope and for justice.
00:41:39.420
And that's really what's been helping me and motivating me.
00:41:47.820
I think most people, understandably, I don't think anyone would blame you if your choice was,
00:41:58.760
But you decided that, OK, what Satan meant for evil, God is going to use for good.
00:42:12.000
And one day, like he is going to take care of all injustice.
00:42:15.760
But until then, he uses situations like this, like yours, to, as you said, advocate for justice for the people who come after you.
00:42:31.040
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00:43:33.340
And I just really hope and pray that God uses us to change things for the better.
00:43:42.760
And I can't change his, I can't change what happened to him.
00:43:46.820
I mean, although it would be amazing that he got a little bit more punishment, I've accepted what happened.
00:43:53.420
And if I can't change what happened to him and I can't change my, my situation, then I can change others.
00:44:00.980
And my, the Bible verse that I've been like going off of is Romans 8, 28, which is God works for the good of those who love him and have been called according to his purpose.
00:44:09.040
And that's really stuck out to me between this whole thing.
00:44:11.640
And it's really, it's really taught me that this bad situation that I've been in has completely, has completely changed.
00:44:19.860
And he's really shown me that he can, he works in crazy ways.
00:44:23.820
Being able to go to the State of the Union and being able to talk to senators and representatives is really, it's just such an amazing opportunity.
00:44:33.260
And I've never would have thought that this situation could turn into something so big.
00:44:37.400
And it's really, it's really just been amazing.
00:44:40.740
And the moment that I, that I have been recognizing all of this is when we were able to go up in June.
00:44:46.640
And I remember being so nervous to go and we were on, I think, Good Morning America.
00:44:54.340
I was like, oh, I'm going to be sharing my story in front of the whole country.
00:44:57.320
This is a, a national news and I have to, I have to do this.
00:45:02.840
And I didn't want to, I mean, right before I went on, I was like,
00:45:05.440
I'm going to be admitting to this is I'm going to be a victim.
00:45:09.800
But then I realized God doesn't call the equipped.
00:45:14.820
And that's just really what pushed me because I'm just, at the time I was 14 or no, I was 15.
00:45:21.260
I was 15 years old when I started talking about this and 14 when it happened, 14 when it happened.
00:45:25.460
But I'm 15 when I started talking and I realized that there are people out there that don't have anything.
00:45:32.240
I mean, there was a representative in South Carolina, Brandon Guffey.
00:45:35.320
His son went through something similar and he lost his son to suicide.
00:45:44.800
Although I'm fortunate to have such a great community and such a great family and such a great friends, people out there have nothing.
00:45:51.960
They have no one and they are just forced to live with this.
00:45:55.040
I mean, this is happening to people who don't have the ability to speak up and it's really been put on my heart that I am going to do this in order to not only help others, but to show others that this is only possible through God.
00:46:08.220
If there was one message that you, Anna, would want to send to parents watching this, what would it be?
00:46:17.260
So I feel like we're blessed in that we've always been able to kind of talk to each other, but this subject needs to be broached with kids.
00:46:27.580
So a lot of times we get contacted now probably weekly when this is happening to somebody else, somebody else, and parents not knowing what to do and going, this is really a thing?
00:46:38.480
You know, like people don't even understand what is happening in regards to AI and bullying and the whole fake, deep fakes.
00:46:50.160
Let's go ahead and have it so that kids don't feel like they're isolated when it happens.
00:46:59.220
He felt threatened and he was afraid for his family.
00:47:01.260
And so it's kind of like you've got to start having these conversations previous to anything happen, being proactive instead of reactive.
00:47:09.200
And so it's just like have these conversations.
00:47:11.360
And then we've got to we've got our next part of this is getting it out there to our schools.
00:47:15.820
So we've got to be able to have training for teachers, for administration, for school boards who don't know what to do with it.
00:47:23.660
And, you know, and then and then for our, you know, our local police and sheriffs, I mean, they if they don't know what's going on either or don't know about hopefully the take it down bill when it passes into law, they're not going to know to prosecute.
00:47:35.800
So it's like we we have to get the word out there that there is something and, you know, and and have that open, open dialogue with people.
00:47:44.220
Put the protocols in place and let everyone know there's a zero tolerance policy.
00:47:49.720
We will turn you over to law enforcement and you will be in trouble.
00:47:53.460
And take it seriously from the get go, even preemptively, as you said, and parents having these proactive conversations, because as you mentioned, it's not it's not just like guys being the perpetrators and girls being the victims.
00:48:09.880
But as you just mentioned, that one situation, it was actually a guy, a teenage guy.
00:48:14.520
And I've heard multiple of these stories who was the victim of someone sending an A.I.
00:48:20.820
or photoshopped picture of them looks like they're doing something sexual.
00:48:27.560
And so for parents, like the open dialogue, both if you think your child could be susceptible to doing that and if you think your child could be susceptible to being a victim.
00:48:38.040
Like, also, I just want to remind parents that and I'm, you know, I'm not a parent of teens.
00:48:48.520
But like, parents, you are still the parent and you are allowed to take your child's phone.
00:48:53.860
Like, if you think it's a possibility that your child is looking at porn or doing something like this, it doesn't matter if your child is 17.
00:49:00.780
You can take your child's phone as long as they are in your home.
00:49:04.420
And I don't think it's too late to put parameters and rules around social media use because it is a tool that even, you know, even we adults don't always handle correctly.
00:49:19.500
I appreciate you all so much and your willingness to share your story and to come on today.
00:49:24.160
And I know that everyone watching will be praying for y'all and just praying for y'all's protection and for God to continue to use your story.
00:49:35.520
We're hoping that in the next two weeks it'll be presented on the house floor and go through.