Sen. Klobuchar fights AI after vulgar deepfake video of her went viral

Sen. Amy Klobuchar raised the alarm about artificial intelligence (AI) technology and called on Congress to pass protective legislation.

The Minnesota Democrat penned an opinion piece published in The New York Times that addressed a viral video that faked a “vulgar and absurd critique” of the senator’s likeness of actress Sydney Sweeney and the headline-making “great jeans” ad campaign.

Klobuchar wrote that “it is urgent for Congress to immediately pass new laws to protect Americans by preventing their likenesses from being used to do harm.”

“I learned that lesson in a visceral way over the last month when a fake video of me — opining on, of all things, the actress Sydney Sweeney’s jeans — went viral,” she wrote.

She said she noticed “a clip of me from that hearing circulating widely on X, to the tune of more than a million views,” referring to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on data privacy.

“That’s when I heard my voice — but certainly not me — spewing a vulgar and absurd critique of an ad campaign for jeans featuring Sydney Sweeney,” she said of the American Eagle advertisement.

On one hand, Amy Klobuchar’s complaint only draws more attention to the offending video. I hadn’t even heard about this deepfake until today.

On the other hand, our leaders are right to worry about mockery and degradation. We get to do that in America.pic.twitter.com/Gq1prj3vjq

— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) August 20, 2025

“The A.I. deepfake featured me using the phrase ‘perfect titties’ and lamenting that Democrats were ‘too fat to wear jeans or too ugly to go outside.’ Though I could immediately tell that someone used footage from the hearing to make a deepfake, there was no getting around the fact that it looked and sounded very real,” Klobuchar wrote. “And while I would like to think that most people would be able to recognize it as fake, some clearly thought it was real.”

She said the social media platform X “refused to take it down or label it,” even though TikTok removed it and Meta labeled it as A.I.

“X’s response was that I should try to get a ‘Community Note’ to say it was a fake, something the company would not help add,” she explained.

The senator acknowledged that the incident “does not in any way represent the gravest threat posed by deepfakes,” but lamented the fact that Americans seem “powerless” to remove unauthorized deepfakes and that “this technology can turn the lives of just about anyone completely upside down.”

She called a law that President Trump signed, the TAKE IT DOWN Act, supported by her and Senator Ted Cruz, “only the first step.”

“The proposed bipartisan NO FAKES Act, cosponsored by Senators Chris Coons, Marsha Blackburn, Thom Tillis, and me, would give people the right to demand that social media companies remove deepfakes of their voice and likeness, while making exceptions for speech protected by the First Amendment,” Klobuchar wrote.

“In the United States, and within the bounds of our Constitution, we must put in place common-sense safeguards for artificial intelligence. They must at least include labeling requirements for content that is substantially generated by A.I.,” she added after noting laws in other countries.

“We can love the technology and we can use the technology, but we can’t cede all the power over our own images and our privacy,” she concluded. “It is time for members of Congress to stand up for their constituents, stop currying favor with the tech companies and set the record straight. In a democracy, we do that by enacting laws. And it is long past time to pass one.”

Senior Staff Writer
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.

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