AI intimate image-based abuse: advocating for more education, investment and prevention
At the end of May, we presented at King’s Festival of Artificial Intelligence alongside BRK Ujima’s Director of Research and Development, Dr. Kũi Mackay, exploring solutions for Black women who are victim-survivors of intimate image-based abuse.
Our talk on our commissioned landscape review by BRK Ujima’s informed the discussion of our session “Harm, Prevention and Redress: Combatting Deepfake Abuse Impacting Black Women”. We were happy to see service providers, researchers and community members in the audience. Kũi presented findings on research gaps in the area, and our Head of Policy, Research and Campaigns, Gabriela de Oliveira shared our perspective on how the criminalisation of incorrectly named ‘deepfake’ intimate image-based abuse may not result in providing transformative justice for Black women and gender-expansive people. We had a rich discussion: we were asked how we’re working with victim-survivors; how we’re challenging the Government; and what it means to think beyond the criminal justice system to seek forms of redress. We explored how Black feminisms and abolitionist thinking could support better prevention and repair, with the aim of ending the cycle of violence.
As we begin to launch our work advocating for alternative forms of redress, here, we share some reflections (though by no means exhaustive), from the work done by BRK Ujima.
Education and public awareness
BRK Ujima’s research highlights the researchers and advocates calling for investment in educational programmes and public awareness campaigns to help prevent and respond to intimate image-based abuse. Some of these include the need to work with victim-survivors to mitigate the impact of abuse on things such as body image, freedom of speech and political participation. Others advocate for more education and awareness on digital consent. Lastly, some advocate for campaigns to help people identify, and counter, digitally-manipulated content, with the aim of building resilience across communities.
Culturally relevant approaches
BRK Ujima’s work advocates for investment into community engagement approaches which specifically cater for demographics that experience additional barriers to accessing support in other ways. This includes specialised support services, education programmes, or mechanisms for redress that are, for example, tailored to Black LGBTQ+ victim-survivors, sex workers or immigrants who may have different cultural, religious or socio-economic backgrounds.
Mental health and psychological support
BRK Ujima’s findings emphasises the hugely significant mental health impact ‘deepfake’ intimate image-based abuse can have on victim-survivors, and calls for more research and investment into support services. This again includes investment in culturally relevant approaches that are particularly focussed on providing meaningful and accessible care for victim-survivors who face marginalisation and institutional racism in public services such as healthcare, policing and education.
As we work to influence policies and regulation that can better support victim-survivors, BRK Ujima will continue their work in plugging the research gap on this issue. To learn more about them, go to https://brkujima.com/. To receive updates about their final report, ‘Understanding Digital Misogynoir: AI, Deepfakes, and Online Gender-Based Violence, subscribe here.