Reviewing the role of laws in shaping society across centuries

The human society has always been guided by laws. This December, it has another opportunity to gaze into the past and sigh at how far it has come. On the 18th of December, Sotheby’s will place one of the most influential texts in history on auction – the oldest inscribed stone tablet of the Ten Commandments. This artifact, the only complete tablet of the Ten Commandments still existing from its early era, dates from the late Roman-Byzantine era, approximated to be 1500 years old.

The marble tablet, weighing 115 pounds and standing up to two feet tall, was unearthed in 1913 during railway excavations along the Israel’s southern coast, near the sites of early synagogues, mosques, and churches. The original site of the tablet was likely destroyed during either the Roman invasions of 400-600 CE or the later Crusades of the 11th century.

Thirty years from its discovery, the tablet, inscribed in Paleo-Hebrew script, served as a paving stone at the entrance to a local home, its inscription facing upwards and exposed to foot traffic. In 1943, the tablet was sold to a scholar who recognized it as an important Samaritan Decalogue featuring the divine precepts central to many faiths, one that may have originally been displayed in a synagogue or a private dwelling.

However, this tablet contains only nine of the commandments as found in the Book of Exodus. It omitted the commandment “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain” and included a new directive to worship on Mount Gerizim, a holy site specific to the Samaritans.

While the ten commandments inscribed on stone tablets guided conduct and determined morality more than a millennium ago, legislators are now poised to enforce justice across physical boundaries. The digital space now seems to be the next battlefield for ethics and morality.

The US Senate has passed a bill by Senator Ted Cruz targeted at shutting down publication of nonconsensual deepfake pornography and intimate images.  The “Take it Down” act entered the legislative scene in June, sponsored by Sen. Cruz and Senator Amy Klobuchar. Once passed, it would criminalize publishing pornographic images, including computer generated photos and videos modeled after real people.

Cruz’s bill passed Tuesday night by voice vote and no recorded opposition. The lack of opposition bodes well for its chances of passing the House and being signed into law by the president.

It would require apps such as Snapchat and websites to remove such images within 48 hours of a victim’s request. The Federal Trade Commission would enforce that requirement.

“It will also hold Big Tech accountable by making sure websites remove these disgusting fake videos and pictures immediately,” Cruz said in a statement.

“This problem is growing exponentially. It increased 3,000% last year, 95% of the deepfakes that you have online right now are non-consensual, intimate imagery, typically targeting teenage girls or women. And it is wrong. And we need Congress to act.

The bill passed in the Senate, bringing together “every Democrat and every Republican. It’s now in the House, and I would encourage the House to take it up and pass it in December,” he said. “If they put it on the floor for a vote, it will pass, put it on the president’s desk. Let’s protect kids. Let’s protect women all across the country.” Cruz added.

15-year-old Aledo High School student Elliston Berry, whose classmate used an artificial intelligence program to transform innocent pictures of her and her friends into nudes joined Cruz at the news conference. The classmate spread those images across social media, causing Elliston to dread setting foot on campus. Although the perpetrator left her school, she said she still worries about the pictures resurfacing in the future.

“I was 14 years old when I was violated all over social media, and I was just 14 years old when I feared my future was ruined. My goal is to prevent any other student from undergoing this issue … and hopefully turn this horrible situation into something good.” Berry said at the hearing.

“It makes it a crime. It makes it a felony to do what this this boy did to Elliston [Berry]; to take an image of a person and to use AI to create a deepfake to circulate non-consensual intimate images,” Cruz said Wednesday on Newsmax’s “National Report.”

Berry and her mother, Anna McAdams, have been pushing lawmakers to ban the sharing of nonconsensual intimate images, including those produced through programs capable of creating authentic-looking nude photos.

In conclusion, laws are at every bend in the road of man’s evolution. Inspite of all the clamour for liberty, man cannot live unbridled. Thus, laws are indispensable whether they come in marble tablets or electronic ones.