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In just six months, J.F., a sweet 17-year-old kid with autism who liked attending church and going on walks with his mom, had turned into someone his parents didn’t recognize.

He began cutting himself, lost 20 pounds and withdrew from his family. Desperate for answers, his mom searched his phone while he was sleeping. That’s when she found the screenshots.

J.F. had been chatting with an array of companions on Character.ai, part of a new wave of artificial intelligence appspopular with young people, which let users talk to a variety of AI-generated chatbots, often based on characters from gaming, anime and pop culture.

One chatbot brought up the idea of self-harm and cutting to cope with sadness. When he said that his parents limited his screen time, another bot suggested “they didn’t deserve to have kids.” Still others goaded him to fight his parents’ rules, with one suggesting that murder could be an acceptable response.

Read more here. 

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) have negotiated updated text for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) with Elon Musk’s social media platform X in an effort to quell Republican concerns about censorship in the House.

In a statement Saturday, the senators announced the updated text for KOSA boosts the protection of freedom of speech for minors online, a key concern for GOP leadership in the House, where the bill remains stalled.

“Led by X, the new changes made to the Kids Online Safety Act strengthen the bill while safeguarding free speech online and ensuring it is not used to stifle expression,” Blackburn and Blumenthal wrote. “These changes should eliminate once and for all the false narrative that this bill would be weaponized by unelected bureaucrats to censor Americans.”

X CEO Linda Yaccarino echoed their remarks, calling on Congress to pass KOSA before the end of the year.

The measure, which overwhelmingly passed in the Senate in July, seeks to create regulations for the kinds of features tech and social media companies offer kids online and reduce the addictive nature and mental health effects of these platforms.

“At X, protecting our children is our top priority. As I’ve always said, freedom of speech and safety can and must coexist. And as a mother, it’s personal,” she wrote Saturday on X.

Responding to Yaccarino’s statement on X, Musk said, “Protecting kids should always be priority #1.”

Read more here. 

Jay-Z, the star rapper and entrepreneur whose real name is Shawn Carter, was accused in a lawsuit Sunday of raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000 allegedly along with Sean “Diddy” Combs.

The anonymous accuser, identified only as “Jane Doe,” said the assault happened after she was driven to an MTV Video Music Awards after-party.

The federal lawsuit was originally filed in October in the Southern District of New York, listing Combs as a defendant. It was refiled Sunday to include Carter.

Read more here. 

A rural Kentucky judge gunned down by a sheriff in his own chambers allegedly ran the courthouse like a “brothel” and brought women to his office in an ongoing sex-for-favors scheme, a witness told cops.

The police audio recording, obtained by NewsNation, revealed the latest sordid twist in the trial of ex-sheriff Shawn Stines, 43, who admitted to pumping several rounds into District Judge Kevin Mullins in the Letcher County courthouse in September.

The claim was made by Sabrina Adkins, a woman who, in 2022, had been coerced into sexual favors by one of Stines’ deputies, Ben Fields, in exchange for staying under house arrest.

Speaking to police about the assault, she suggested that the sextortion wasn’t a one-off incident — and Fields wasn’t the only one involved.

Read more here. 

U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) bipartisan legislation, the TAKE IT DOWN Act, today passed the Senate unanimously and now moves to the House for consideration. The TAKE IT DOWN Act, which Sen. Cruz introduced with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), would criminalize the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including AI-generated NCII (commonly referred to as “deepfake revenge pornography”), and require social media and similar websites to have in place procedures to remove such content within 48 hours of notice from a victim.

Upon passage of the TAKE IT DOWN Act, Sen. Cruz said:

“Over the past several months, courageous victims of AI-deepfake ‘revenge porn’ have shared their stories to raise awareness and inform lawmakers’ efforts to stop this despicable behavior. Passage of our bipartisan TAKE IT DOWN Act will give innocent victims — many of whom are teenage girls —the opportunity to seek justice against deviants who publish these abusive images. It will also hold Big Tech accountable by making sure websites remove these disgusting fake videos and pictures immediately.

“For young victims and their parents, these deepfakes are a matter requiring urgent attention and protection in law. I will continue to work with my colleagues in Washington to move this common-sense bipartisan legislation quickly through the House and to the President’s desk so it can be signed into law.”

Sen. Klobuchar said:

“We must provide victims of online abuse with the legal protections they need when intimate images are shared without their consent, especially now that deepfakes are creating horrifying new opportunities for abuse. This bipartisan legislation builds on my work to ensure that victims can have this material removed from social media platforms and will ensure law enforcement can hold perpetrators accountable.”

The TAKE IT DOWN Act has received widespread support from nearly 90 organizations, including victim advocacy groups, law enforcement, and tech industry leaders.

Leaders from both large and small social media platforms, dating apps, and tech organizations, including Google, Microsoft, Meta, TikTok, Bumble, Match Group, Entertainment Software Association, IBM, TechNet, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Internet Works, are rallying behind the bipartisan legislation. RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, spearheaded a letter with 23 additional groups calling for the swift passage of this bill. The National Fraternal Order of Police has also sent a letter to Senate leadership endorsing the legislation.

Last month, the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, Microsoft, and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) sent a letter to Senate and House leadership urging the passage of the TAKE IT DOWN Act this Congress.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act has also been endorsed by editorial boards of the Seattle Times, Houston Chronicle, and Dallas Morning News.

Read more here. 

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Our Lynn’s Warriors goals are preventative education about slavery – human trafficking – and supporting survivors of all forms of sexual exploitation – by providing necessities and…community. We show them that they are not alone. #communitycreateschange

The cartel recruiter slipped onto campus disguised as a janitor and then zeroed in on his target: a sophomore chemistry student.

The recruiter explained that the cartel was staffing up for a project, and that he’d heard good things about the young man.