Believe it or not
The Guardian Weekly|May 17, 2024
Raffaella Spone was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and subjected to death threats. The problem? The video wasn't fake after all. She talks for the first time about being the centre of a story that created headlines around the world, yet nothing was as it seemed...
Jenny Kleeman
Believe it or not

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 collapses into laughter, causing 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 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 journalists at the Bucks County courthouse on 15 March 2021. Someone was deploying cuttingedge technology to tarnish a teenage cheerleader's reputation.

The vaping video was just one of many disturbing communications brought to the attention of Hilltown Township police department, Weintraub said. Madi had been receiving messages telling her she should kill herself. Her mother, Jennifer Hime, had told officers someone had been taking images from Madi's social media and manipulating them "to make her appear to be drinking". A photograph of Madi in swimwear had been altered: "Her bathing suit was edited out." Madi wasn't the only member of the Victory Vipers cheer team to have been victimised. In August 2020, Sherri Ratel had been sent anonymous texts accusing her teenage daughter, Kayla, of drinking and smoking pot. Noelle Nero had been sent images of her 17-yearold daughter in a bikini with captions about "toxic traits, revenge, dating boys and smoking". These, too, were "all altered and shown as deepfakes", Weintraub added.

This story is from the May 17, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the May 17, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

MORE STORIES FROM THE GUARDIAN WEEKLYView All
Finn family murals
The Guardian Weekly

Finn family murals

The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition

time-read
4 mins  |
November 08, 2024
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
The Guardian Weekly

I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson

Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.

time-read
3 mins  |
November 08, 2024
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The Guardian Weekly

A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams

The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.

time-read
4 mins  |
November 08, 2024
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
The Guardian Weekly

'What will people think? I don't care any more'

At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister

time-read
10+ mins  |
November 08, 2024
I see you
The Guardian Weekly

I see you

What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results

time-read
10+ mins  |
November 08, 2024
Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
The Guardian Weekly

Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago

Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.

time-read
3 mins  |
November 08, 2024
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
The Guardian Weekly

Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit

Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.

time-read
3 mins  |
November 08, 2024
Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
The Guardian Weekly

Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping

After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.

time-read
2 mins  |
November 08, 2024
'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
The Guardian Weekly

'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital

Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order

time-read
3 mins  |
November 08, 2024
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
The Guardian Weekly

Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'

High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness

time-read
5 mins  |
November 08, 2024