8 Times ‘Deepfake’ Videos Were Actually Real

Raffaela Spone, a Pennsylvania woman who earned the moniker “deepfake cheerleader mom” for allegedly using manipulated images to cyberbully teenage girls, was in fact wrongly accused. Prosecutors had originally alleged Spone, a 50-year-old mother of a cheerleader, had sent doctored images of other teen girls using a vape pen, drinking, and using drugs, to the team’s coach in an effort to get them booted off the squad. The teens reportedly appeared nude in some of the images. Prosecutors at the time alleged Spone had scoured through the teens’ social media profiles and used deepfake tech to doctor the images. The problem is, those accusations were false.

Around a month after the charges were announced (and after just about every news site covered the case) prosecutors embarrassingly released a statement admitting there wasn’t any evidence the media in question was falsified. Digital forensic experts speaking with the Washington Posts said the images in question were, in fact, “blatantly authentic.” But maybe don’t shed a tear for Spone too soon. Though she may not have used deepfake she did still reportedly harass then teen even telling one to “kill yourself.”