She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all
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.
The issue here is the police having anything to do with digital forensics...this should have been outsourced to a group that knows how to detect these things and not some cop that barely knows the traffic laws in his own state.
Barely?
In my experience ops don't know shit. It's all about "gut feelings". "Well "his feels illegal so I'm gonna arrest them and if I'm wrong I get to sit at my desk all day or go on a paid vacation" is how it is.
I can't tell you how many times I've been stopped by cops for riding my bicycle on the road. Literally to the point where I have a laminated card I keep in my wallet with the relevant laws saying "this bike is illegal on a sidewalk and cars must give way on the road"
I've had a few threaten to arrest me "for being a piece of shit" or "for wasting my time" like I'm the one who made them stop...
I've been stopped because I "fit a description" multiple times, the "description" being "man on a bike" with nothing else, supposedly.
I've been stopped for speeding in a school zone before, and if it wouldn't have been a waste of time, I'd have let it go to court and showed my helmet camera video that clearly shows my phone GPS as well as cycling computer (glorified speedometer) readout that clearly shows I was well under 25. Granted I've gone 49 in a 45 for about 3 seconds before I realized one rock and I'm dead and slowed down, there's 0 chance of me speeding past 20 on flat ground unless I'm trying to set a personal best.
I've been stopped for "being a road hazard", not having enough reflective things, having "too many lights" (one forward flasher, one steady, and one rear/one steady rear light), not signaling "and hand signals don't count anymore" lol OK...
Pretty much whatever they feel like stopping you for, they'll stop you and come up with a half-assed excuse later. They don't know the laws they enforce, and if they did, they would be considered a liability to other cops and quickly be ejected.
Jesus, where do you live so I can never go there?
Theres a reason so many astronauts come from here... They want to leave so bad, they fled the planet.
Ah, America. Yeah that tracks. ;)
Your state at least has a great air museum in Dayton to encourage more of those Astronauts.
No, op is assuming you're American. They mean Ohio specifically.
Actually, I was assuming more people have heard the joke "more astronauts have come from Ohio because they're fleeing the state" more than assuming "this person is American"
But yeah, Ohio. People meme on it being boring and full of cow farms and corn fields for a reason.
Also occasionally our rivers catch on fire and trains get a bit tipsy.
I once had a friend turn down an invitation because he “had friends coming in from Cleveland.” I told him he could just say he didn’t want to go.
But at least your roads aren't so full of pot holes you make Afroman look sober like your neighbour to the north.
It's funny you say that, because I turned a good bit of my right side into what looked like hamburger by flipping my bike on a pothole.
There's a running joke (probably in every state, but I've mostly heard it in relation to Ohio) that the state flower is a traffic cone, and the state tree are the big orange barrels. Brand new roads get ripped up every winter because plows and road salt aren't good for... Well, anything except cars. And they're not even goor for cars long term.
Ohio is the SCP state alongside Arkansas.
No, op is assuming you're American. They mean Ohio specifically.
What color is your skin?
Good gravy. Glad I live in Seattle. They are finally make a few physically separated bike lanes instead of just painting a bike symbol on the side of the road.
Hell, the supreme court codified "gut feeling" into fucking law.
I can't remember the name of the case, but it was referenced in "Talking to Strangers" by Malcolm Gladwell. A guy was pulled over because the cop believed the lens to his taillight was cracked, which led to an arrest on drug possession charges. Turns out, the state that they were in didn't have a law about 'cracked lenses', but the cop thought they did. Our fucked up SC upheld the probable cause, the resulting search and seizure, and all the rest of the fruit of the poisonous tree by saying: "that the officer thought the activity was illegal was enough basis for a probable cause stop.
We are truly fucked, ladies and gentlemen.
I've always thought it was nuts that cyclists are told not to use sidewalks. If a cyclist hits a pedestrian on a sidewalk, it sucks but it isn't that big of a thing. Comparatively, if a car hits a cyclist on the road, then the damage to human health can be far worse. So why put the cyclist in that situation if a sidewalk exists?
As someone in the more rural bits, I've ridden my bike on 2 lane non marked roads a few times - however, the amount of social media complaining in my town is absolutely appealing when it comes to cars. People complaining about speeding, then complaining about people going 2mph under the speed limit. I do my best to stick to trails or sidewalks because if you happen to inconvenience anyone - they might make it a point for you to have a bad day. And that's sad.
Some PDs do have their own digital forensics units. It isn't a task handed to patrolmen
It's incredibly rare a patrolman has access to DF tools at all.
They aren't given to patrolmen. They have dedicated and specially trained units. Otherwise the evidence can be nullified.
Source: have worked in digital forensics.
There are several agencies that have some patrolmen doing on-scene digital forensics in the US.
Source: I currently work in digital forensics and have trained patrolmen.
On-scene stuff is a bit different. You're not doing the actual analytics on scene if you can help it, you're obtaining the evidence. Of course that still needs specialist training, you can't simply copy and paste shit, but it's very different to what goes on in the forensic lab.
Yeah absolutely. We're on the same page. Just pointing out that they're slowly rolling more tech out to the knuckle draggers which can be concerning if not done properly (and a lot of the time it isn't).
Indeed. I'd say the on-site guys really need training. Beyond working directly on the master image and writing to it or reporting false findings, there isn't as much that can be irrevocably fucked up in the analytics room.
Acquisition is a whole different story. One seemingly small fuck up and the evidence is toast.
The BIs are usually who handle this stuff, but it sounds like this never was sent up to the state investigation units. This literally sounds like bob came off patrol and said "heard about them deepfakes must be one of them"
As always, ACAB.
edit to add
And then there was this ...
Only 1-2 years for possessing literally hundreds of CP images and videos? What the fuck? I mean I guess he didn't harm anyone directly (as far as we know) but still, come on.
I could of sworn I've seen other CSM PDF files getting over a decade in jail. Pays off to be a criminal cop.
Nah that's a pretty light sentence, he definitely got some leniency because he's fuzz.
With that number of images he very likely paid for some and thereby directly contributed to abuse of children.
I wonder how much money the Hime family has donated to the Doylestown Police Department.
Deepfake fake news story aside, at the crux of this story is a girl or parent jealous of Madi's position on the team and was trying to tattle to get her kicked off the team. This story getting ignored was the best result. The girl was 16 and she was caught vaping. Kids are going to do shit they shouldn't and any hard and fast rule on vices like this is only going to be abused and cause more damage in the long term.
I'm more concerned about this loser parent going around stalking 16 year olds being 16 year olds.
This whole story certainly inspires one to despise technology, however.
Absolutely.
"Helicopter Karen tries to snitch on kids for vaping, but gets fucked by the police instead".
I sincerely hope everyone involved comes out worse for wear.
She's gone aerial now?!
Soon she’ll go full tiger
For real, that's a story in itself. And then Madi's old man knows some guys on the force so they say it's fake, that's story two. I'm honestly more interested in story one, because some loser is out here stalking this 16-year-old girl so they can screw her shit up, presumably out of jealousy.
My kids will play sports and dance and do whatever. I have no interest in pushing them towards very serious leagues, because time and again the people involved in them have shown they are all losers. My kids will not be professional athletes, we are not particularly tall or strong or fast, but they can do well, be healthy, and make friends, that's about all I want from it.
Considering the woman: A) is legally barred from discussing the other families, and B) denies having sent anything to anyone, I think you might be making some pretty broad assumptions. What we do know is that the videos and photos weren’t faked, and they were evidence of misconduct by the other girls, who as of yet have experienced zero consequences and in at least one case may have benefited from the case going viral.
Oh no, a teenager faces zero consequences for vaping. We are doomed! /s
That being said, you are right that the allegations should not be taken as facts, especially considering they came from the same source as those deepfake lies.
Yeah man! Lock that fucking kid UP! Throw the book at that scoundrel!
It was a teen vaping. Fucking chill out.
Teen vaping that lied, convinced others to lie, including parents, & destroyed someone’s life in the process.
Maybe not lock her up, but kick that twat’s ass off the cheer team & take away scholarships.
If you’re willing to lie to the point that you ruin someone’s life, yes you do deserve a lot of fucking blame.
Ruined someone's life who was trying to ruin theirs. Fair play IMO.
No asshole. The first mom went to the other kids’ parents. She tried to at least keep it between the families. Yes, she fucked up with anonymous messages, but that’s pretty fucking minor compared to doubling down a lie to the point the fucking cops get involved.
There are no winners here. The fact that you view any of this to be fair is really fucking sad and I feel bad for your neighbors.
That's not what she was convicted of. She sent them to the cheerleading organization as well.
She sent REAL videos of the teens acting badly, including her own. One of the other teens LIED claiming the videos were fake.
This was parent contacting other parents about kids fucking up & the other parents opted to trust their lying children over the other adult.
The first mom got charged with harassment because the cops were not able to charge her with deepfaking child porn. The cops tried to charge her as a pedo & opted to slap her wrists for anonymous text messages rather than admit they fucked up too.
Again, no one is right here, but if you think those kids don’t deserve some righteous holy hell for their bullshit then I don’t know what to tell you.
Except, maybe… don’t procreate. Not sure we need your kids running around this planet.
They were vaping and drinking, normal shit 16 year olds do and not hurting anyone. It's hardly the end of the world. She didn't just keep it between the families. If she hadn't tried to fuck them over and get them kicked off the cheerleading team it would have been a non-issue. Doesn't really matter what the cops initial motivations were. She went through a trial and a jury reviewed the evidence and found her guilty.
GO READ THE ARTICLE YOU DOLT. AND TAKE NOTES.
Normal 16 year olds don’t hold onto a lie long enough that it destroys the life of friend’s parent. Those fucking kids lied about their behavior in the face of video fucking evidence & kept lying until police were involved. If you ever let your child lie to the point you involve the police because you refuse to believe your teenager is teenager, you shouldn’t have teenagers.
The mom you’re convinced deserved to have her life ruined, did nothing more than contact parents of her kid’s friends because she was worried about her daughter & her daughter’s friends.
Did she do it the right way? No. But… I can at least follow of the logic of “send anonymous messages so I don’t wreck my kid’s social life”.
She did not the call cops & it never would’ve escalated to this point if one, just fucking one of the other parents had acknowledged their teenager is liar, as most teenagers are liars in the face of getting caught.
I cannot follow the logic of “no way my kids are liars, better call the cops, cause that technologically gifted mother just has to be creating deepfakes on her phone”. That’s ridiculous & it never should have escalated to this point.
And for the record, once again, It is the other parents & their kids that escalated this.
One of those fucking adults should have stood up & said, “look, these are teenagers. What’s the likelihood they’re lying? Maybe we sort that out first before we ruin our kids lives by inviting the cops.”
If you think any of the adults in this situation acted correctly, aside from the reporter, I really hope no one ever finds themselves relying on your ability to judge character.
I already read that one, where do you think I got the quote I provided you? Did you read it?
Anyway. I went ahead and read two more to try and get a more concise explanation of what was proven in court here are some notes:
We know this was not fake but it was sent to the coaches, not the parents. Doesn't seem like someone who is concerned about the girl in the video. Seems like someone who wants to fuck up their cheerleading career.
So we've confirmed she had images with cruel captions on her phone. That IS harassment and again, not the behavior of a concerned parent.
She fucked around and ended up having her name drug through the mud. Same as she was trying to do to the girls. I have no sympathy. Is the deepfake thing stupid? Yes, but that's on the cops for not investigating properly before making statements. As usual.
You stopped before the good part…
The information you’re presenting is presented as having come from Weintraub over the course of the investigation into Spone. What do we learn later about Weintraub?
“Matt Weintraub became a judge in January; his office said that, given his new position, “the ethical rules require him to decline” my interview offer – but he has been declining to comment on the case since May 2021.”
Moderately suspicious until you weigh in this. That investigation that crucified Spone, the one you’re so dead set on being fact? Well, it didn’t result in much did it?
“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.”
Now the article goes on to talk about the other families involved. If they were on the righteous side of all this, certainly they’d share a thought?
“I have tried to contact Madi and Jennifer Hime for two years, over email and social media, and also Kayla Ratel and her parents, Sherri and George; none of them have responded. Of the three families, only the Neros have got back to me, to politely decline my request. Those who made the loudest noise when the cheerleader deepfake story broke have now gone quiet.”
The reporter then goes onto to acknowledge that the only perspective that can be shared on the WHY any of this happened, is that of Spone.
However the reporter goes on to tell us,
“The way Spone describes it, there was no rivalry between the Vipers. But it’s clear that in 2020 she had been checking the social media feeds of her daughter’s cheerleading friends and had become concerned by what she saw. What happened next caused things in that cheerleading family unit to break down, irretrievably. “They were my friends. They were people I cared about,” Spone says, quietly. “It broke every part of me.””
So.. maybe Spone did send the videos to the coaches… another X for her… but, here’s a reminder that you’ve pulled that information from a police investigation headed up by a would be pedophile, who claimed to be able to visually decode deepfakes, using “metadata”.
An investigation done FOR Weintraub, who’s still a starry eyed DA with an election to win at this point. An investigation that would be drummed up nationally, getting as many eyes on “Karen the Pedo Mom” as possible…
Only to drop the charges, slap Spone on the wrist, & then STFU his way to a judgeship.
Spone saw her kid doing dumb kid shit, alongside other dumb kids doing more dumb kid shit on Social Media… that’s where she got those images you want to crucify her for.
She didn’t make them. The kids did. She raised the flag internally, trying to KEEP KIDS from getting in worse trouble.
Again, I’ll grant that maybe Spone contacted the coach. But do you know when that happened?
Did it possibly happen after the other girls started lying about deep fakes?
Cause if Spone already knew those girls were lying, then she’s got nothing to lose by going to the coach. That is a mother protecting her daughter.
From who?
From a bunch of dumb fuckin kids who are just dumb enough to put their dumb fuckin kid shit on social media, just dumb enough to get caught, & just fuckin dumb enough to lie this charade onto a national platform.
Like I said, read the whole fuckin article.
Did they actually do anything you are saying? It was the police who claimed it was a deepfake, not necessarily the kid.
Are you kidding me? You didn’t read the article did you? You just picked side & started downvoting.
Those kids lied the whole way through, saying the videos were fake. They doubled down it. They got the cops involved & were somehow stupid enough to let a pedophile cop take it the point that a woman, likely a family’s, life has been ruined.
No the other mom shouldn’t have narc’d, but if you fuck up and get caught, you don’t get to lie your way out of it at the expense of someone else.
Stop seeing shit so black and white. Everyone involved here is stupid as shit.
No no clearly the best thing to do is to ruin her life over vaping just like kids who lose all the scholarships they earned because they got caught smoking weed. How else are they going to find out how dangerous these things are if we don't absolutely destroy them in spite of their accomplishments?
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” - Orwell, 1984
I guess I can see why this is being posted, but if you are entering this era thinking that because you've seen a video of something that it must have happened...well, you haven't been paying much attention and opening yourself up to being easily manipulated.
Honestly, this is what I consider to be the clear danger of generative "AI". We've basically gone several steps backward toward a world where we can't prove something happened because recording technology doesn't exist because it can be faked well enough and easily enough to cast doubt on any recording.
Sure, experts can analyze it and deem it legit or not legit but for the average person its becoming harder and harder to tell. Word spreads fast, and it's been demonstrated that lies spread faster than their corrections by orders of magnitude. All it takes is for something to "go viral" or someone with authority to lazily confirm or deny that something is real/fake and the public at large loses touch with reality.
This plus the insane misinformation campaigns and those that cry "fake news" whenever the news contains information they don't like... I feel like truth and reality are becoming unfashionable.
Frankly, I think that's exactly what will also be its downfall in such cases. At a certain amount of exposure of such material, people will stop caring, because of how common it will be. The larger issue is not how to tell what's fake, but how to tell what's true. Large players, such as governments or corporations, can and will abuse this tech for whatever narrative they need.
Confirmation bias just leads people to believe whatever confirms their beliefs. Now we can give anyone anything they need to confirm their beliefs.
This article took way too long to get to the fact that this was a massive police fuckup.
Fuck ups are unintentional. They did this shit on purpose
imagine caring this much about what teens do.
Jesus christ your life must be so boring. I get wanting to be a good influence and stuff but like holy shit dude.
If you don't care about what teenagers do, you end up with a country full of twats.
yeah, which is why you care about people not teenagers
It's harder to change the behaviour of adults, much easier to grow them right.
yeah and notoriously rebellious and anti-authority teenagers are going to respond well to an authority figure?
nope, you've got to give them the framework to be able to conceptualize their experience of the world properly. Which we aren't doing when we say "no vaping"
It's a difficult problem, it's been studied for centuries, there doesn't seem to be a correct answer to the problem.
Yeah The vape's going to fucking brain rot them right?
I think the original comment was saying nobody should give a fuck what teens do when it comes to stuff like that, because you can't prevent it, teens do drugs (nicotine is a drug)
I will add that the only person that should care is the child's parents, but the same principles apply. They can't stop them, but they should educate them on the potential downsides of consuming certain things at their age.
Huh. I thought the original commenter meant Why did anyone report on teenage drama in the first place?
Did that guy who got arrested for making deep fakes that implicated a school official in corription get out yet or will he have to languish for years before it gets overturned?
They have logs of him using the school’s network to visit ai audio generators, so that case will probably stick…
Ah yeah. I see they found evidence he was stealing money and the principle was investigating so he tried to get him canceled by fabricating racism.
What the fuck kind of narc sent it to her coaches.
I used to have a coworker whose daughter was in competitive cheer. It's like any youth competition -- the parents can lose their goddamn minds over it. If there was a chance somebody could DQ a competing team, or perhaps open up a spot on a team by narcing on one of the current members, somebody is gonna do it.
The accusations are the punishment. It's used all over the place.
Great digital forensic team. Dipshits.
I dont get what the issue was with the video in the first place. And why would someone send something like this? Who gives as if kids party? Code of conduct rules for school clubs shouldnt be a thing either.
Yeah, IMO that the clip was real is only marginally better than a deep fake being used. As long as no one is pressured to do anything they don't want to do and they aren't using intoxication to justify actual shitty behavior, who cares?
Who gives a shit, let the teen have fun for fucks sake, cops here actually did a good thing for the girl by saying it was a deepfake.
So this lady wanted to get a cheerleaders life ruined for vaping?
Snitches get stitches.