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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And also, extracurricular groups forcing a code of conduct akin to purity tests need to go the fuck away. If they want to exploit the talent and hard work of kids for personal monetary gain, you’d think they’d be less of a dick about it.
She apparently did send the texts she was guilty of sending. Which was a misdemeanor and for which she paid restitution. But, as was already said, the videos were on social media and that doesn’t give the pedophile cop the right to make up some deepfake bullshit, which results in a public press conference accusing her of it, and that results in things like her neighbor threatening to kill her because he thought she was a pedophile.
The poster neither said nor implied that this justified what the cops did, only pointed out that what this lady did was still still incredibly petty. It’s a story of all bad guys.
That’s not how things seemed to me at all. She wasn’t trying to get the other girl kicked off the team. The other girl was potentially putting her daughter at risk, and she was just trying to keep her daughter safe.
Whether or not some teenage partying is actually a significant risk, I don’t really have a strong view on, but I can certainly understand the thought process.
If your concern is about safety, why are you trying to mask who you’re sending it from and complaining about them posting pictures in revealing clothing?
Maybe she was worried that raising those concern’s could potentially have her daughter sidelined?
I missed that part about the revealing clothing. Maybe you’re right, and it’s just unchecked puritanism. Perhaps I’m giving this lady too much benefit of the doubt.
That’s some heinous shit. I don’t see why anyone has any sympathy for this woman regardless of police incompetence.
Because the only thing Spone was convicted of was sending five texts. Apparently the texts weren’t threatening, they were sent to the moms so they would be aware of what their daughters were doing. We don’t even know if the intent of sending the texts was malicious or of concern. Spone didn’t create a deepfake video; the video was real.
The kids receiving death threats is horrible, but who shared the video or texts outside of the group of kids and moms? Who put it online? The kids lied about what happened over and over again. The girls may not have meant to, but they and the police ruined Spone’s life.
Unless I am misunderstanding something from the article?
It sounds like this woman isn’t very truthful either. It seems like one of those cases where everyone involved is a shitty person.
She didn’t take the videos. They were on social media.
I interpreted “taking” here as getting it from one place and moving it to another. Although it’s certainly not clear.
Right? She tried to ruin a young person’s life over vaping. I said that above and got downvoted.