A new form of “image-based sexual abuse” is becoming increasingly popular amongst American teenagers using artificial intelligence-based “nudification” apps to taunt schoolgirls.

New research shows that a development trend amongst highschool students from across the country who use these apps to generate and share fake nude photos of their classmates, reports. Students in schools from California to Illinois have fallen victim to having fake nudes shared without their consent.

While revenge porn has been a problem for years, the arrival of deepfake technology means “anyone can just put their face into this app and get an image of someone – friends, classmates, co-workers, anyone – with no clothes on at all” – Britt Paris assistant professor of library and knowledge science at Rutgers who has researched deepfakes, said.

Male students at Issaquah High School in Washington used a nude app to “undress” photos of girls who attended homecoming last fall. Tenth-grade boys at Westfield High School in New Jersey shared fake X-rated photos of their classmates throughout the varsity. The growing fad is leader to laws which might impose penalties on people found guilty of sharing doctored photos.

Washington, South Dakota and Louisiana have already passed laws prohibiting the creation and sharing of fake deeds by states like California and others that follow close behind. Representative Joseph Morelle (D-NY) recently reintroduced a bill that may make sharing fake records a federal crime.

He continues to point to the applications behind the growing AI nudification trend. Amy Hasinoff, a communications professor on the University of Colorado in Denver, believes the new regulations will only be a “symbolic gesture” if no motion is taken to combat apps used to generate images.

“I try to imagine a reason why these apps would exist,” Hasinoff said.

Lawmakers are also working to manage app stores offering nude apps to stop them from being worn without explicit consent provisions. Apple and Google have removed several apps offering fake nudes from the App Store and Google Play.

15-year-old Westfield student Francesca Mani was a victim of the fake image and shared how traumatic the experience was for her.

“I was in the counselor’s office, emotional and crying,” Mani said. “I couldn’t believe I was one of the victims.”

Hasinoff notes that even when the photos are fake, victims can deal with “shaming, blaming and stigmatization” brought on by stereotypes that sexualize female victims and make them appear more sexually lively.

“These images put these young women at risk of exclusion from future employment opportunities and also expose them to physical violence if recognized,” said Yeshi Milner, founder of the nonprofit Data for Black Lives.

To combat fake images, nine states have adopted or updated laws to punish people affiliated with more states, and the number is growing. A federal bill introduced in 2023 would give victims or parents the power to sue perpetrators for damages and impose criminal penalties. Although the bill has not yet passed Congress, it enjoys growing bipartisan support.

Some remain skeptical in regards to the impact of the regulations as AI nudification applications remain available to be used.

“Until companies can be held accountable for the kinds of harm they cause,” Paris said. “I don’t see much changing.”

The 15% staff cuts are part of a wider cost-cutting effort

Peloton, exercises equipment manufacturer and provider of online fitness courses, he said it’s slowing down 15% of the workforce (roughly 400 people) as part of cost reduction measures. The company also announced that its CEO, president and director of the board, Barry McCarthy: he would relent after two years on this position.

McCarthy, who previously served as chief financial officer at Spotify and Netflix, was forced to retire in early 2022 when Peloton co-founder and then-CEO John Foley left his position as part of a sweeping cost-cutting effort. consequently of which 2,800 employees were dismissed. Foley remained as executive chairman, but seven months later he left the company together with co-founder and chief legal officer Hisao Kushi.

Peloton says it’s in the process of finding McCarthy’s successor, and current Peloton chairwoman Karen Boone and executive Chris Bruzzo will function interim co-CEOs during the transition.

Peloton went public in 2019 with an initial valuation of $6 billion, and its fortune skyrocketed after the pandemic hit. As the world settled into homes and other people looked for tactics to remain healthy with home exercise equipment, the company’s bikes and online courses virtually disappeared from shelves, ultimately giving it a market capitalization of $50 billion in early 2021.

But when the world returned to normal, Peloton’s stock also returned to normal, and its market capitalization fell to $10 billion in January 2022, a 12 months after its peak.

Currently, the New York-based company’s market capitalization is just over $1 billion. Still, the company’s shares were up about 13.3% in pre-market trading on Thursday morning, apparently driven by Peloton’s announcement that it might cut costs.

In addition to cutting its workforce by 15%, Peloton said it also intends to further reduce its footprint in retail showrooms and double its international growth with a more “targeted and effective” go-to-market strategy. Together, these steps are expected to assist the company reduce annual expenses by greater than $200 million by the end of fiscal 12 months 2025.

These announcements got here just before Peloton reported worse-than-expected revenues and losses for the third quarter of 2024and a 21% decline in paid app subscriptions in comparison with the previous 12 months. When the company announced its second-quarter ends in February, its shares fell 24% to an all-time low continued after reporting decline in revenues and dismal prospects for the coming months.

This week, the company invested $5 million in Agora, a front-end DAO management solution

Blockchain startups were Things got hot when Katie Haun left Andreessen Horowitz in 2021 to start her own cryptocurrency-focused enterprise capital firm. However, shortly after Haun announced that the two Haun Ventures funds had reached a combined amount of $1.5 billion, cryptocurrency prices plummeted and FTX collapsed.

Despite having a large arsenal of dry powder, Haun Ventures has been slow to get into crypto and web3 on the low-cost, with many observers wondering when the company will pick up its pace of adoption.

While Haun Ventures says it wasn’t exactly sitting on its hands (and capital) during the cryptocurrency market downturn, the company was perhaps more cautious than it initially intended.

But now that bitcoin prices have rebounded to previous highs, Haun Ventures’ investment activity is increasing dramatically. Including some token items, the company has made 48 investments in accelerator funds value $500 million in early-stage and $1 billion in later-stage funding, Haun Ventures told TechCrunch.

The company’s latest investment is Agora – an application that improves voting and other decision-making processes in decentralized autonomous organizations. On Tuesday, the company led a $5 million seed round to Agora, with participation from Seed Club, Coinbase Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan and others.

Sam Rosenblum, partner at Haun Ventures, said a big barrier to DAO participation was the lack of an easy user interface that may allow members to approve (or vote on) the implementation of software updates to the protocols they manage.

The process was very fragmented. Some decisions were made on a separate Discord channel; “Then (the community) would go somewhere else to vote on whether to allocate treasury dollars to a specific project,” Rosenblum said.

Agora solves this problem for DAO members by providing an easy-to-use community and protocol management solution. “Historically, if you wanted to participate in the allocation of protocol vault resources, you had to perform a number of on-chain activities yourself, which likely meant you had a hardware and software configuration that most people didn’t have,” Rosenblum said.

Agora goals to make it easier for non-technical users to take part in DAO. Rosenblum compared it to Coinbase, which made coin trading simpler for most individuals.

The company was founded in 2022 by Charlie Feng, who co-founded fintech Clearco; Coinbase product designer Yitong Zhang; and software engineer Kent Fenwick.

Agora, which is actually a SaaS offering, is already utilized by protocols reminiscent of Optimisma href=”https://agora.ensdao.org/” goal=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>ENS and Uniswap.

Rosenblum explained that these protocols are pleased to pay Agora since it helps lower the barrier to participation of their community.

While activity in the cryptocurrency world is actually accelerating, Rosenblum didn’t say exactly when Haun Ventures will finish rolling out its current fund. However, he said that investments will proceed next 12 months.