The issue was only mentioned once on Wednesday on Capitol Hill when senators quizzed tech CEOs including Mark Zuckerberg, who runs Facebook and Instagram, Evan Spiegel who leads Snapchat, and X’s Linda Yaccarino on children’s safety for four hours.

But Francesca was, her mother said, one of dozens of victims of deepfake pornography at her high school alone — suggesting the problem is regularly affecting millions of teenage American girls.

And there is no federal law which prevents the images being spread, because they are not currently categorized as child abuse images.

[This is getting out of hand. We don’t need to stifle innovation, but we do need to attach some severe liability for innovation that victimizes people in this way, especially minors. That means liability for the people hosting software that transforms images into porn without consent, and liability for all those who create and share such images — and/or their parents. — Ed]