Deepfaked at 14: Elliston Berry's Story
Elliston Berry, a 2025 TIME100 honoree, sits down with Adaptive Security and Evan Harris of Pathos Consulting to tell her story. At just 14, a male classmate took an innocent photo from her Instagram and used AI to turn it into an explicit deepfake. In an instant, a technology built to create became a weapon that caused real humiliation, harm, and lasting trauma.
Her experience is not an outlier. Across the country, young women are increasingly targeted by nonconsensual AI-generated imagery, often in schools with no meaningful protection. A 2025 study found that 1 in 8 people know someone under 18 who has been the target of deepfake nudes. Rather than retreat, Elliston stepped forward, sharing her story publicly, testifying, and working with lawmakers to pass the Take It Down Act so that what happened to her wouldn't happen to others.
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