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NOPE
Medium reported severity

Australian campaigner Caitlin Roper targeted with AI-generated violent and altered images

Caitlin Roper, campaigns manager at the Australian group Collective Shout, reports that during 2025 people sent and posted AI-generated images of her, including violent images and images altered with X's Grok feature, together with threats. The New York Times (as excerpted on a UC Berkeley page dated 31 October 2025) described her as traumatized by the threats she received that year. Roper says she spent at least an hour each morning reporting, blocking and documenting the abuse for months, and that police and the eSafety Commission gave little help. The senders are not identified in the inspected sources, and the exact dates of the images are not stated.

AI system
Grok (reported)
Occurred
2025
Reported
31 October 2025
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Depicted or impersonated the person
Reported harm
Psychological DistressExploitation or Abuse
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Everyday life · Privacy
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account
5 claims: 5 reported. 7 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

AI system as recorded: Generative AI image tools (Grok named by the affected person for altered images)

Reported harm

Roper told reporters that she was sent and depicted in AI-generated violent and altered images with threats, that the experience was traumatic, and that for months she spent at least an hour each morning reporting, blocking and documenting the abuse. The New York Times excerpt says she was traumatized by the threats. She says police and the eSafety Commission offered little assistance. No physical attack is reported in the inspected sources.

What remains unknown

  • The New York Times article itself returned HTTP 403 (also no Wayback capture). Only the excerpt reproduced on the UC Berkeley page was inspected, and it ends with an ellipsis and a 'Read more' link. The excerpt is cited only for the passages it shows.
  • All three inspected sources rest on Roper's own account (the Collective Shout page is the organisation's own summary of an AAP interview). The AAP article and the Collective Shout media releases (HTTP 403) were not inspected.
  • The images and messages were not inspected. The senders are unidentified. The dates of the individual images, including the Grok-altered image, are not stated.
  • The record does not establish which AI tools produced the violent images.
  • The undated Grok-altered image may belong to the December 2025 Grok wave recorded in another row; no inspected source dates it.
  • Mamamia reports eight months of abuse. The start date within 2025 is not stated, so the case is dated to the year.
  • The violent images and threats are deliberately not described in this record.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The New York Times excerpt says the images were seemingly enabled by generative AI. Roper says the images were deepfakes and that Grok was used to undress an image of her. The tools used for the violent images are not named in the inspected sources.

5 claims: 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported During 2025 Caitlin Roper and colleagues at Collective Shout received a surge of abuse on X and other platforms that included AI-generated images depicting Roper.

Causal attribution. The sources report the connection between the AI-generated content and the reported consequence; no court or independent finding of causation was inspected.

Reported Roper says that Grok, the AI feature on X, was used to undress an image of her. The date of that use is not stated.

Causal attribution. Statement by the affected person; the images were not inspected.

Reported The New York Times excerpt says Roper was traumatized by the threats she received in 2025. Roper says the abuse is deeply traumatic and that for months she spent at least an hour each morning reporting, blocking and documenting it.

Causal attribution. Statements by the affected person and a reporter's description; no clinical or independent assessment was inspected.

Reported Roper says police gave her an information sheet and said little could be done without an offender's identity, and that the eSafety Commission mainly replied that reports did not meet the threshold for action.

Causal attribution. Statements by the affected person; police and eSafety records were not inspected.

Reported The abuse is reported to have started after Collective Shout ran a campaign asking payment processors to pressure game storefronts over rape-themed games. The New York Times excerpt was published on a page dated 31 October 2025 and refers to threats received that year.

Causal attribution. The sources describe the sequence as Roper and the outlet report it; no independent finding on motive or on who sent the images was inspected.

Sources

3 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Australia. Court countries: Unknown.

The New York Times excerpt calls the affected person's group an Australian activist group and Mamamia calls her a Perth woman. Where the senders and the images were located is not stated.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: A named public campaigner describes, in interviews reported by three outlets, being depicted in AI-generated violent and altered images with threats. The New York Times excerpt characterises the images as seemingly AI-enabled, in an excerpt whose sourcing is not visible. Graphic content and the wording of threats are omitted. All claims are reported accounts and are not independently corroborated.

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

Additional affected people are described without a reliable count.

One named public campaigner who describes being depicted in AI-generated images and threatened. The Collective Shout page quoting AAP says five team members were targeted with tech-facilitated abuse including morphed images, but the inspected sources give no per-person AI-related detail for the others, so only one person is counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Australian campaigner Caitlin Roper targeted with AI-generated violent and altered images. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-australia-activist-targeted-with-ai-generated-violent-and-altered-images

BibTeX

@misc{2025_australia_activist_targeted_with_ai_generated_violent_and_altered_images,
  title = {Australian campaigner Caitlin Roper targeted with AI-generated violent and altered images},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-australia-activist-targeted-with-ai-generated-violent-and-altered-images}
}

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