How to use AI to fight online image abuse, with Breeze Liu

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0:36Today, Raz's success is proof that with passion and the right support, it's possible to make your dreams a reality. Learn more at CapitalOne.com slash business cards. Before we get started, we do talk about some very difficult topics on this episode, including sexual abuse and suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. Okay, on to the episode.

1:09Something pretty monumental happened recently at the White House. And with all the nonstop news on tariffs, immigration issues, protests, you may have missed it. On a busy news day, the president set to sign the bipartisan Take It Down Act, which would help combat sexually explicit online materials sometimes generated by AI, also known as deep fakes or revenge porn. With the rise of AI image generation, countless women have been harassed with deep fakes and other explicit images distributed against their will. This is the wrong, and it's just so horribly wrong. President Trump signed the Take It Down Act into law.

1:51This legislation criminalizes the publishing of non-consensual intimate images online, commonly referred to as revenge porn. This material can be real or artificially created. According to the new law, once reported, companies hosting these images and videos have 48 hours to take them down. I knew, like, you know, I probably have to change the law if I want to be, like, successful in executing my vision. But I just never anticipated I could actually change the law because back then everyone was telling me, There is no way you can change the law. That's Breeze Liu. She's been instrumental in advocating for this legislation.

2:38A few years back, Breeze discovered that an explicit video of her had been posted on the internet without her consent. There was the original real video that was posted. And then she found that there were more than 800 videos of her synthetically created using AI, also known as deepfakes. Needless to say, it's been traumatic. And she knew that this story did not stop with her. 98 % of all deepfakes are pornographic and 99 % target women. This technology just exists to humiliate women. I mean, the data is very, very clear. Breeze has since dedicated her time and effort to making sure no one else goes through the same experience.

3:27She's founder and CEO of Electo AI, a company using AI technology to fight online image abuse. Breeze shares her personal story from survivor to advocate to entrepreneur. We hear how she's deploying some of the same technology that led to the spread of online image abuse to help fight it. and learn how the Take It Down Act could stop deepfake abuse. I'm Rana El-Khalyubi, and this is Pioneers of AI, a podcast taking you behind the scenes of the AI revolution.

4:12Welcome to Pioneers of AI. Thank you for joining us on the show. we are going to be tackling a very important and highly sensitive topic today. So first of all, I'm really grateful for you for making time for us. I know our listeners will learn a lot from you today, and I also hope that you will help us really find the right way to navigate all of this and use the right terminology to talk about this problem. So I'm just really grateful and excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Okay, so there's so much to talk about. We are going to get into your story, your personal story, and also your company, Electo AI.

4:52But before we do that, what exactly is revenge porn? And can you kind of unpack that for us? Yeah, absolutely. So it's actually a very complicated issue. So I don't like to call it revenge porn because porn is consensual and there's nothing consensual about the abuse. So I think in a nonprofit world, they call it non-consensual sharing of intimate images, NCII. And if it involves like a minor, a children, it's a CSAM, child sexual abuse material. So these things are, first of all, they're abusive content. They are not porn because it was never legally produced. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that.

5:38Yeah, no problem. I just feel like if we want to change the culture, we need to start changing the mindset, right? But just to clarify that it's abusive content, but it comes in many different forms. So sometimes it's like when it was created, maybe it was consensually shared between a couple. but when something like didn't work out and something goes wrong so they would share that that video and then to say like i'm going to ruin your life i'm going i put it on pornhub and it became what it is then also some other times it was taken without anyone's consent like you know there's a webcam in a bedroom and a woman usually don't even know about it until they see that they're on Pornhub.

6:28And there were also sometimes like there were hidden cameras in public places, like in public bathrooms and the hotel rooms and the Airbnb and people checking into like the hotel or going to the bathroom. They just they had no idea what was going on. And in Korea, a few years back, they had this movement called My Life Is Not Your Porn. It's a huge issue. So whether it's synthetic content or like deep fake abuse, AI generated or authentic image abuse. And we're all living in fear, especially women. But I mean, I also wanted to point out that not only women are the victims of this. I mean, we need to like, you know, kind of show more compassion to men as well.

7:14Teenage boys are actually largely impacted by sextortion. So through my advocacy journey, I got to talk to another survivor. He has a very tragic story. His teenage son actually took his own life after being sextuarded. So it's like a criminal organization. People pretend to be attractive teenage girls and then kind of trick the young boys to send nude photos of themselves and then threaten them saying, if you don't give us this much bitcoins and whatever, we're going to tell your parents and ruin your life. Ries knows so much about the many forms of online image abuse because she experienced it herself.

8:01She's fought for years to get these images of her taken down. And this experience is the backbone of her advocacy. So I guess I'd love to hear your personal story, whatever you feel comfortable sharing of that story. I guess this began for you in 2020. Yeah. So a little bit about my background. I majored in peace and conflict studies at UC Berkeley. And that's a major I often joke about. You are either going to change the world or starve to death because you're not going to get a job with that major in Silicon Valley. Right. I mean, because it's not computer science, right? It's not it's not tech related.

8:46So what happened after you studied that? So I thought I was going to become a diplomat. But living in Silicon Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, it's just not very practical for a fresh out of college, like young person to become a diplomat. So my first job out of college was actually on the trust and safety team at a big tech company. So I really learned a lot from doing this kind of work. I understand what is broken or how things are working in the big tech companies when it comes to self-regulating. Let's take it back to 2020, April. It was during the pandemic, but it was a beautiful, sunny afternoon.

9:32I was at my apartment and I received a Facebook message from my college friend and he said, I don't want you to panic, but there is a video of you circulating on Pornhub. And he sent me the link and on the thumbnail, that was my face. And that was the moment that completely changed my life. and I've never used Pornhub but I've heard about what it is right and and when I clicked into it I also saw how many people have viewed this video of me it really just completely broke me and you know I'm not a celebrity I am not a politician I just wasn't prepared to be so exposed in front of the entire world for this kind of exploitation and abuse.

10:29And I couldn't take it anymore. So I went to the rooftop of my building and I was attempting to commit suicide at that moment. Oh my God. Okay. I am glad you got through that moment. And I'm so sorry you had to go through this. I have a whole bunch of questions for you. First, kind of what was the moment when you went from, you know, I have this like feeling of being hopeless to being empowered to do something about it. Yeah, it definitely took a while. It doesn't happen overnight. So any ordinary human being, when they even adult or otherwise, when you face this sort of issue, you just feel very alone, like the ground disappears beneath you and nobody could understand what is going on.

11:18And that's exactly how I felt. I was overwhelmed with shame and I couldn't even tell my parents about it. So, I mean, I reached out to a friend of mine and I told her about this situation. She said, if you like really go to the police, you need to be prepared that law enforcement, sometimes they might not understand this issue fully and you you might not get very great response. So I reported this to the police. And the police did create a case for me, which I am grateful for. But at the end, like it just went to nowhere. And instead of, I mean, I have very clear evidence of who the perpetrator is.

12:07But back then, there wasn't any federal law that criminalizes this kind of behavior. At one point, the police asked me, have you ever engaged in prostitution? Do you ever exchange money for sexual videos or photos of yourself? I mean, it's just really humiliating. It really kind of broke me again. Yeah. How did you realize the extent with which these images were out there? Like, how did you find out how many of these videos or images were out there and how did you track them down? Oh, God. Yeah. These things never just stay in one place. They would proliferate all over the internet. I mean, it's like a disease.

12:55So like that original video, actually, it got copied and shared again and again on Pornhub. And it was also uploaded to other websites that leeching websites, which they crawl and download content from Pornhub. So that was like only the original video. So what started out with just one video ended up on over at least 800 abusive URLs all over the world. Non-consensual intimate images, whether real or deepfakes, are extraordinarily common. According to a study from Thorne, a child safety nonprofit, 6 % of American teens have been the target of these kinds of deepfakes. But even though they're so common, before the Take It Down Act, they've been extremely difficult to remove.

13:49In a minute, Breeze explains why.

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14:50How did you go about taking these images down? Like, what's the process? Well, that is a very long story So, originally when I found out about that one video And then people keep telling me that there's more of that out there. And at one point, it was just too much for me as a human being. And I decided I'm not even going to think about what might be out there because it's just too much for me to handle. So in 2020, I hit pause on myself. I was like, I'm going to lock all of these crazy, abusive memories in a box in my head that says, do not open. until you're much stronger. But in 2023, I was introduced to Nicholas Kristof.

15:42Nicholas Kristof is an opinion columnist for the New York Times. He often writes about human and women's rights. And then we decided to work on this story together. So before Nick Kristof wrote about me, I remained anonymous. But at one point, I realized I need to channel my activism and my advocate voice, I decided to speak up. So like Nick was Nicholas Kristoff at the New York Times. That was the very first time I used my name and my face. So brave. Thank you. I had to really prepare myself for that. I mean, for for over a year, I was like, OK, I'm ready. But before this New York Times article came out, I was like, OK, I want I need to know what's out there about me.

16:29right so um i decided to reach out to an organization to help me with um like first discovering this content tracking it down yeah yeah yeah tracking it down that's an organization in the uk so i still remember the moment uh when that organization in the uk they sent me um the emails that you have to personally download uh these um they give me an excel sheet yeah excel sheet with all the url names so it's not all of these content but they were like for privacy reasons, you have to download it to your own computer. You have to just do that. And it was very difficult. I remember I had to call my therapist and have my friend hold my hand to click the download button.

17:14And I still, until this day, I cannot look at even the name of the URLs. But this friend of mine, she got curious and she clicked into the Excel sheet and started just scrolling through and look at the name of the URLs. And she started crying. And she was like, I can't imagine why would any human being do this to another person. So I mean, until this day, I don't know what it exactly is on the URLs names. But I know it's very bad. And it's probably not good for my mental health to even think about it. But then does this UK organization then go to these websites and ask them to take down these images?

17:53Is that the process? So because I'm not a UK citizen, so they couldn't help me. And I had to use my network. And eventually I found a French organization. It's called Point de Contact. And they are so kind. And they said, we're going to help you because you're really taking a huge one for the world for coming out about this. I thought it was going to be easy, but no. They were able to remove a lot of these abusive content through the standard process. But 142 URLs were hosted on Microsoft Azure's server. That's crazy. Yeah. Point of contact is a trusted flagger by Microsoft. And even though, I mean, they used all of their connection, tried to reach out to Microsoft, and I provided all of the information I could, my passport and my statement and everything, and Microsoft just refused to take it down for a very long time.

18:53Eventually, we had to corner the head of trust and safety of Microsoft at a conference to beg them to take down my content. Do you know if there are still any images of you out there or are they all been taken down? Well, I bet there are still some out there because Pornhub allowed download and I'm sure it's still somewhere. So that's the part that I always have to live with. you know, knowing that it's always out there. What is your advice for people who are, they've been exposed to this and they're trying and they're thinking through, they have self-harming thoughts. Where did you get support?

19:38What's your advice for people who are potentially going through this and how can they get support? Yeah. I mean, I definitely understand how crazy that feels. You're like, you know, I'm all alone. There's no one can help me. But I mean, And one thing I wanted to say is that, you know, there are people doing good work like me, right? And there are a lot of nonprofits, which, you know, the ones that helped me, they're amazing. But it really took a very long time. And my solution at Electo AI is about, I mean, trying to minimize human suffering. Electo AI. Breeze is founder and CEO of this company.

20:17They use AI to combat the kind of online image abuse that is often created by people using AI. So tell us about Electo. How, you know, what do you do? How do you help? What's the process look like if somebody suspects that their content is out there? Yeah. So when I first started Electo AI, I was still working full time as a VC because I need to, you know, I need to live. I need a salary. But luckily, we had a really good year in crypto, and I accumulated some crypto. So I was able to quit my job to focus on ElectroAI full time. But I remember when I first had this idea, I just started writing on my bedroom window.

21:06And then I was looking at it, wow, that is the vision. So it's a little bit different from starting companies in garages, which is what most tech bros would do. I wrote it on my bedroom window. Love it. So, I mean, I had very big vision since the very beginning because I know this is, first of all, it's a systemic problem and it requires systemic solution. And also this is a tech-enabled problem. So we need to have a tech-enabled solution. I mean, I had a lot of rejection and people laughing to my face. At one point, I was pretty much like, I realized, unless I changed the world, unless I changed the entire system, justice wouldn't even be an option for me.

21:52Yeah, I think it's actually very cool that you are, you know, a lot of this problem is people exploiting AI, but you're actually using AI to solve the problem. So walk us through that. My understanding is Electra uses facial recognition technology. So what does that look like? Yeah. So my idea was actually inspired by a game theory, the nuclear deterrence theory, which was one of my favorite. I think it's very smart. You have to deter nuclear weapon with nuclear weapon, and then you have balance. And that way, it's more likely to have peace. So if you have like, you know, two like, you know, countries or like, you know, powers don't like each other.

22:35It's more safe for the world when both of them have nuclear weapons, which is why I think like, you know, using AI to deter AI generated abuse is a necessary step. And this is really the trend when we're like moving forward. So Brees, can you walk us through how Electo works? Like say an individual decides to engage with Electo and download the app. What does the process look like? Yeah, so we try to make it very simple and as easy as possible for people to use it. You download the app and then you go through a liveness check, making sure that you're a real person living and breathing. And if I try to upload your face to a lactose system, it doesn't work.

23:18So after you go through the Leibniz check, our system then would use facial recognition to look through, like, you know, if your image has been abused across different platforms, different websites, and then you can just, like, you know, click a few buttons and tell us which one you want us to help you to remove. And then that's it. You don't have to worry about it. You don't have to deal with that pain. It's a very simple and easy product. People want to take it down, and we help them to take it down. But, I mean, one thing we do have is the community and also the global network of all the different organizations.

23:57Mental health support, legal support, everything is in our app. So if they do download that, they can click into it and get the help they need. That is instant support. That's awesome. Basically, the core technology here is facial recognition technology, And you've been pretty adamant on Electo's website that the technology is anti-racist. We've talked about facial recognition a lot on this show and how we absolutely need to mitigate data and algorithmic bias. So how do you ensure that kind of the facial recognition technology underlying Electo is not biased in any way? Yeah, so even for the industry standard facial recognition, it's already performing very well.

24:38but we are constantly training our data like to make sure that I'm Asian you know I'm I bet like you know there's a lot of discrimination associated with my skin tone because we understand like you know like and not to mention being an Asian woman so we are trying to like you know adjust to the fact that you know make it available to everyone and especially considering the fact that this is disproportionately impacting women and people of color. So we're definitely aware of that. And we understand that, you know, technology is not perfect. But I mean, because of like, you know, this is a personal issue for me.

25:16So I always make sure that it performs well across different skin tones. But from the moment Bree started planning out Electo AI, she knew the problem could not be solved by her company alone. There needed to be systematic legislative changes, which is why she started testifying before members of Congress. After a short break, we dig into the Take It Down Act and how it could stop deepfake abuse.

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27:11All right. So let's talk about Take It Down. Walk us through what the legislation actually entails and when is it going to come online? What does it mean for companies out there? Talk us through it. So this is actually a landmark success because this is the first federal legislation that criminalizes deepfake abuse and other forms of NCII. Before that, it was completely blank. We didn't have any federal law. It was the state law. So even if you somehow get to the FBI, I mean, unless you're a minor, like FBI couldn't take your case because they have to follow the jurisdiction, right? This is not their jurisdiction.

27:54I remember when I finally begged the FBI to take my case and they were like, we looked into it, but there's like, no, this isn't under our jurisdiction. So they were trying to kick me back to the police, the local police. The police is like, oh, anything cyber related have to go to the FBI. So I was being ping pong around for a very long time. It was just really frustrating. So at one point I just decided, I mean, I'm not even going to think about it until the law became law. So, you know, it's very practical. So we understand, like, you know, nothing happens overnight. But at least, you know, right now you have deterrence.