Democratic Senator from Minnesota Amy Klobuchar recently appeared on social media in a video saying that actress Sydney Sweeney had “perfect titties” and that Democrats were “the party of ugly people.” It was a deepfake, of course, and Klobuchar never uttered those words. But the senator has now written an op-ed in the New York Times to discuss the video and is calling for new legislation against deepfakes.
“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.’” Klobuchar wrote in the New York Times. “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.”
The video of Klobuchar was originally from a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on data privacy that had been altered to make her look like she was talking about Sweeney. A recent ad from American Eagle featuring the actress became controversial because she talked about “good genes,” to discuss denim from the company, a play on the word jeans. Critics said it was a reference to eugenics, and President Donald Trump even weighed in after he learned that she was a registered Republican, praising the actress.
Klobuchar wrote that the fake video had gotten over a million views, and she contacted X to have it taken down or at least labeled as AI-generated content. “It was using my likeness to stoke controversy where it did not exist. It had me saying vile things. And while I would like to think that most people would be able to recognize it as fake, some clearly thought it was real,” Klobuchar wrote.
🚨BREAKING!!!: Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota weights in on Sydney Sweeney’s new American Eagle ad. pic.twitter.com/DusZYlisFR
— andy (@reapingandy) July 31, 2025
But Klobuchar writes that X refused to take it down or label it even though X has a policy against “inauthentic content on X that may deceive people,” as well as “manipulated or out-of-context media that may result in widespread confusion on public issues.”
Anyone who’s spent time on X since Elon Musk bought the platform knows that he doesn’t really care about manipulated content as long as it serves right-wing interests. But there’s also the question of why any manipulated video would need to be labeled if most people could tell it was fake. X reportedly told Klobuchar to add a Community Note, and she was miffed that the company wouldn’t help her add one, according to her op-ed.
Klobuchar ends her article by promoting the No Fakes Act (Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act), which has cosponsors across party lines, including Democratic senator Chris Coons of Connecticut and Republican senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.
The senator from Minnesota writes that the bill “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.” As the EFF notes, the No Fakes Act is deeply flawed, creating what it calls a new censorship infrastructure. The latest version of the law has carve-outs for parody, satire, and commentary, but as the EFF points out, having to prove something is parody in a court of law can be extremely costly.
The irony in Klobuchar drawing attention to the deepfake video is that a lot more people are now going to know it exists. And it’s getting posted more on X in the wake of her op-ed. In fact, Gizmodo had difficulty finding the tweet Klobuchar says got 1 million views, but we did find plenty of other people re-posting the video now.
Read the full article here
