She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all
She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all
The moral panic following Raffaella Spone’s ‘deepfake’ video spread around the world. She talks for the first time about being the centre of a story in which nothing was as it seemed …
Madi Hime is taking a deep drag on a blue vape in the video, her eyes shut, her face flushed with pleasure. The 16-year-old exhales with her head thrown back, collapsing into laughter that causes smoke to billow out of her mouth. The clip is grainy and shaky – as if shot in low light by someone who had zoomed in on Madi’s face – but it was damning. Madi was a cheerleader with the Victory Vipers, a highly competitive “all-star” squad based in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The Vipers had a strict code of conduct; being caught partying and vaping could have got her thrown out of the team. And in July 2020, an anonymous person sent the incriminating video directly to Madi’s coaches.
Eight months later, that footage was the subject of a police news conference. “The police reviewed the video and other photographic images and found them to be what we now know to be called deepfakes,” district attorney Matt Weintraub told the assembled journalists at the Bucks County courthouse on 15 March 2021. Someone was deploying cutting-edge technology to tarnish a teenage cheerleader’s reputation.
But a little over a year later, when Spone finally appeared in court to face the charges against her, she was told the cyberharassment element of the case had been dropped. The police were no longer alleging that she had digitally manipulated anything. Someone had been crying deepfake. A story that generated thousands of headlines around the world was based on teenage lies, after all. When the truth finally came out, it was barely reported – but the videos and images were real.
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The issue here is the police having anything to do with digital forensics...this should have been outsourced to a group that knows how to detect these things and not some cop that barely knows the traffic laws in his own state.
Barely?
In my experience ops don't know shit. It's all about "gut feelings". "Well "his feels illegal so I'm gonna arrest them and if I'm wrong I get to sit at my desk all day or go on a paid vacation" is how it is.
I can't tell you how many times I've been stopped by cops for riding my bicycle on the road. Literally to the point where I have a laminated card I keep in my wallet with the relevant laws saying "this bike is illegal on a sidewalk and cars must give way on the road"
I've had a few threaten to arrest me "for being a piece of shit" or "for wasting my time" like I'm the one who made them stop...
I've been stopped because I "fit a description" multiple times, the "description" being "man on a bike" with nothing else, supposedly.
I've been stopped for speeding in a school zone before, and if it wouldn't have been a waste of time, I'd have let it go to court and showed my helmet camera video that clearly shows my phone GPS as well as cycling computer (glorified speedometer) readout that clearly shows I was well under 25. Granted I've gone 49 in a 45 for about 3 seconds before I realized one rock and I'm dead and slowed down, there's 0 chance of me speeding past 20 on flat ground unless I'm trying to set a personal best.
I've been stopped for "being a road hazard", not having enough reflective things, having "too many lights" (one forward flasher, one steady, and one rear/one steady rear light), not signaling "and hand signals don't count anymore" lol OK...
Pretty much whatever they feel like stopping you for, they'll stop you and come up with a half-assed excuse later. They don't know the laws they enforce, and if they did, they would be considered a liability to other cops and quickly be ejected.
Jesus, where do you live so I can never go there?
Theres a reason so many astronauts come from here... They want to leave so bad, they fled the planet.
Ah, America. Yeah that tracks. ;)
Your state at least has a great air museum in Dayton to encourage more of those Astronauts.No, op is assuming you're American. They mean Ohio specifically.
Actually, I was assuming more people have heard the joke "more astronauts have come from Ohio because they're fleeing the state" more than assuming "this person is American"
But yeah, Ohio. People meme on it being boring and full of cow farms and corn fields for a reason.
Also occasionally our rivers catch on fire and trains get a bit tipsy.
I once had a friend turn down an invitation because he “had friends coming in from Cleveland.” I told him he could just say he didn’t want to go.
But at least your roads aren't so full of pot holes you make Afroman look sober like your neighbour to the north.
It's funny you say that, because I turned a good bit of my right side into what looked like hamburger by flipping my bike on a pothole.
There's a running joke (probably in every state, but I've mostly heard it in relation to Ohio) that the state flower is a traffic cone, and the state tree are the big orange barrels. Brand new roads get ripped up every winter because plows and road salt aren't good for... Well, anything except cars. And they're not even goor for cars long term.
Ohio is the SCP state alongside Arkansas.
No, op is assuming you're American. They mean Ohio specifically.
What color is your skin?
Good gravy. Glad I live in Seattle. They are finally make a few physically separated bike lanes instead of just painting a bike symbol on the side of the road.
Hell, the supreme court codified "gut feeling" into fucking law.
I can't remember the name of the case, but it was referenced in "Talking to Strangers" by Malcolm Gladwell. A guy was pulled over because the cop believed the lens to his taillight was cracked, which led to an arrest on drug possession charges. Turns out, the state that they were in didn't have a law about 'cracked lenses', but the cop thought they did. Our fucked up SC upheld the probable cause, the resulting search and seizure, and all the rest of the fruit of the poisonous tree by saying: "that the officer thought the activity was illegal was enough basis for a probable cause stop.
We are truly fucked, ladies and gentlemen.
I've always thought it was nuts that cyclists are told not to use sidewalks. If a cyclist hits a pedestrian on a sidewalk, it sucks but it isn't that big of a thing. Comparatively, if a car hits a cyclist on the road, then the damage to human health can be far worse. So why put the cyclist in that situation if a sidewalk exists?
As someone in the more rural bits, I've ridden my bike on 2 lane non marked roads a few times - however, the amount of social media complaining in my town is absolutely appealing when it comes to cars. People complaining about speeding, then complaining about people going 2mph under the speed limit. I do my best to stick to trails or sidewalks because if you happen to inconvenience anyone - they might make it a point for you to have a bad day. And that's sad.
Some PDs do have their own digital forensics units. It isn't a task handed to patrolmen
It's incredibly rare a patrolman has access to DF tools at all.
They aren't given to patrolmen. They have dedicated and specially trained units. Otherwise the evidence can be nullified.
Source: have worked in digital forensics.
There are several agencies that have some patrolmen doing on-scene digital forensics in the US.
Source: I currently work in digital forensics and have trained patrolmen.
On-scene stuff is a bit different. You're not doing the actual analytics on scene if you can help it, you're obtaining the evidence. Of course that still needs specialist training, you can't simply copy and paste shit, but it's very different to what goes on in the forensic lab.
Yeah absolutely. We're on the same page. Just pointing out that they're slowly rolling more tech out to the knuckle draggers which can be concerning if not done properly (and a lot of the time it isn't).
Indeed. I'd say the on-site guys really need training. Beyond working directly on the master image and writing to it or reporting false findings, there isn't as much that can be irrevocably fucked up in the analytics room.
Acquisition is a whole different story. One seemingly small fuck up and the evidence is toast.
I see nowhere that a patrolman had anything to do with anything in this case. You're making assumptions that all cops are patrolman.
The BIs are usually who handle this stuff, but it sounds like this never was sent up to the state investigation units. This literally sounds like bob came off patrol and said "heard about them deepfakes must be one of them"