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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Deepfake fake news story aside, at the crux of this story is a girl or parent jealous of Madi's position on the team and was trying to tattle to get her kicked off the team. This story getting ignored was the best result. The girl was 16 and she was caught vaping. Kids are going to do shit they shouldn't and any hard and fast rule on vices like this is only going to be abused and cause more damage in the long term.
I'm more concerned about this loser parent going around stalking 16 year olds being 16 year olds.
This whole story certainly inspires one to despise technology, however.
Absolutely.
"Helicopter Karen tries to snitch on kids for vaping, but gets fucked by the police instead".
I sincerely hope everyone involved comes out worse for wear.
She's gone aerial now?!
Soon she’ll go full tiger
For real, that's a story in itself. And then Madi's old man knows some guys on the force so they say it's fake, that's story two. I'm honestly more interested in story one, because some loser is out here stalking this 16-year-old girl so they can screw her shit up, presumably out of jealousy.
My kids will play sports and dance and do whatever. I have no interest in pushing them towards very serious leagues, because time and again the people involved in them have shown they are all losers. My kids will not be professional athletes, we are not particularly tall or strong or fast, but they can do well, be healthy, and make friends, that's about all I want from it.
Considering the woman: A) is legally barred from discussing the other families, and B) denies having sent anything to anyone, I think you might be making some pretty broad assumptions. What we do know is that the videos and photos weren’t faked, and they were evidence of misconduct by the other girls, who as of yet have experienced zero consequences and in at least one case may have benefited from the case going viral.
Oh no, a teenager faces zero consequences for vaping. We are doomed! /s
That being said, you are right that the allegations should not be taken as facts, especially considering they came from the same source as those deepfake lies.
Yeah man! Lock that fucking kid UP! Throw the book at that scoundrel!
It was a teen vaping. Fucking chill out.
Teen vaping that lied, convinced others to lie, including parents, & destroyed someone’s life in the process.
Maybe not lock her up, but kick that twat’s ass off the cheer team & take away scholarships.
If you’re willing to lie to the point that you ruin someone’s life, yes you do deserve a lot of fucking blame.
Ruined someone's life who was trying to ruin theirs. Fair play IMO.
No asshole. The first mom went to the other kids’ parents. She tried to at least keep it between the families. Yes, she fucked up with anonymous messages, but that’s pretty fucking minor compared to doubling down a lie to the point the fucking cops get involved.
There are no winners here. The fact that you view any of this to be fair is really fucking sad and I feel bad for your neighbors.
The first mom went to the other kids’ parents. She tried to at least keep it between the families.
That's not what she was convicted of. She sent them to the cheerleading organization as well.
In March 2022, Spone was found guilty of three counts of misdemeanour harassment for repeatedly sending anonymous messages about the three teenagers. A jury found that she had used secret phone numbers to send incriminating photos and videos. The messages – sent to the Victory Vipers and to the teenagers’ families – accused the cheerleaders of drinking, smoking and posting revealing photos on social media. The anonymous numbers used to send the messages had been sent from an IP address belonging to Spone. She appealed against her conviction, but the superior court of Pennsylvania upheld it on 14 November 2023.___
She sent REAL videos of the teens acting badly, including her own. One of the other teens LIED claiming the videos were fake.
This was parent contacting other parents about kids fucking up & the other parents opted to trust their lying children over the other adult.
The first mom got charged with harassment because the cops were not able to charge her with deepfaking child porn. The cops tried to charge her as a pedo & opted to slap her wrists for anonymous text messages rather than admit they fucked up too.
Again, no one is right here, but if you think those kids don’t deserve some righteous holy hell for their bullshit then I don’t know what to tell you.
Except, maybe… don’t procreate. Not sure we need your kids running around this planet.
They were vaping and drinking, normal shit 16 year olds do and not hurting anyone. It's hardly the end of the world. She didn't just keep it between the families. If she hadn't tried to fuck them over and get them kicked off the cheerleading team it would have been a non-issue. Doesn't really matter what the cops initial motivations were. She went through a trial and a jury reviewed the evidence and found her guilty.
GO READ THE ARTICLE YOU DOLT. AND TAKE NOTES.
Normal 16 year olds don’t hold onto a lie long enough that it destroys the life of friend’s parent. Those fucking kids lied about their behavior in the face of video fucking evidence & kept lying until police were involved. If you ever let your child lie to the point you involve the police because you refuse to believe your teenager is teenager, you shouldn’t have teenagers.
The mom you’re convinced deserved to have her life ruined, did nothing more than contact parents of her kid’s friends because she was worried about her daughter & her daughter’s friends.
Did she do it the right way? No. But… I can at least follow of the logic of “send anonymous messages so I don’t wreck my kid’s social life”.
She did not the call cops & it never would’ve escalated to this point if one, just fucking one of the other parents had acknowledged their teenager is liar, as most teenagers are liars in the face of getting caught.
I cannot follow the logic of “no way my kids are liars, better call the cops, cause that technologically gifted mother just has to be creating deepfakes on her phone”. That’s ridiculous & it never should have escalated to this point.
And for the record, once again, It is the other parents & their kids that escalated this.
One of those fucking adults should have stood up & said, “look, these are teenagers. What’s the likelihood they’re lying? Maybe we sort that out first before we ruin our kids lives by inviting the cops.”
If you think any of the adults in this situation acted correctly, aside from the reporter, I really hope no one ever finds themselves relying on your ability to judge character.
I already read that one, where do you think I got the quote I provided you? Did you read it?
Anyway. I went ahead and read two more to try and get a more concise explanation of what was proven in court here are some notes:
In an alleged deepfake video — altered through software to make one person appear as another — the same girl was depicted to be vaping. That video was sent to the coaches of the Doylestown-based cheerleading squad in an attempt to get the girl kicked off the team.
We know this was not fake but it was sent to the coaches, not the parents. Doesn't seem like someone who is concerned about the girl in the video. Seems like someone who wants to fuck up their cheerleading career.
In one of the calls the girl received, she was told, "You should kill yourself."
Two other parents came forward to police in December 2020 to report that their daughters were targeted with similar calls and texts, including salacious images that placed them in situations that never occurred. Some images included cruel captions.
A search of Spone's phone by police found the images that were sent in the messages stored on her mobile device.
So we've confirmed she had images with cruel captions on her phone. That IS harassment and again, not the behavior of a concerned parent.
Prosecutors said that Spone used several anonymous phone numbers to contact the girls' mothers and the cheerleading team coaches. Spone hid her phone numbers using an app called Pinger, prosecutors said.
Magisterial District Judge Regina Armitage allowed the trial to move forward in Bucks County Common Pleas Court. Spone remained accused of making inappropriate calls and sending hostile text messages about the three girls from incognito phone numbers.
The three girls and their mothers testified during the trial that they were scared after receiving the messages because they didn't know who was sending them. Spone never identified herself when asked who the texts were from, prosecutors said.
Spone was not behaving like a concerned mother, prosecutors said, because she initially went to the cheerleading team's coaches instead of the parents. Spone knew the mothers of all three girls and could have contacted them individually through her own number, investigators said.
She fucked around and ended up having her name drug through the mud. Same as she was trying to do to the girls. I have no sympathy. Is the deepfake thing stupid? Yes, but that's on the cops for not investigating properly before making statements. As usual.
Did they actually do anything you are saying? It was the police who claimed it was a deepfake, not necessarily the kid.
Are you kidding me? You didn’t read the article did you? You just picked side & started downvoting.
Those kids lied the whole way through, saying the videos were fake. They doubled down it. They got the cops involved & were somehow stupid enough to let a pedophile cop take it the point that a woman, likely a family’s, life has been ruined.
No the other mom shouldn’t have narc’d, but if you fuck up and get caught, you don’t get to lie your way out of it at the expense of someone else.
Stop seeing shit so black and white. Everyone involved here is stupid as shit.
No no clearly the best thing to do is to ruin her life over vaping just like kids who lose all the scholarships they earned because they got caught smoking weed. How else are they going to find out how dangerous these things are if we don't absolutely destroy them in spite of their accomplishments?