--- --- Aug 26, 2025 # Elliston Berry Activist against AI harms by [Andrew R. Chow](/author/andrew-r-chow/) ## Andrew R. Chow Correspondent  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Courtesy Photo) In October 2023, Elliston Berry of Aledo, Texas discovered that classmates had used an AI app to fabricate and share nude images of her and her classmates. Berry, then 14, and her mother brought the matter to the school superintendent and the police. “They just didn’t know what to do: they were like, this is all new territory,” says Berry’s mother, Anna McAdams. The accounts sharing the images remained active on Snapchat for nine months. Berry refused to let the matter go. She and her mother decided to reach out to Texas Senator Ted Cruz, whose office expressed interest in taking up the cause. Within months, the mother and daughter were flying back and forth to Washington D.C. to talk to congressional offices and news outlets in a campaign for Cruz’s bipartisan bill, the [Take it Down Act](https://time.com/7277746/ai-deepfakes-take-it-down-act-2025/ "undefined"), which proposed criminalizing non-consensual deepfake porn and requiring platforms to take down such material within 48 hours of being served notice. At one point during the campaign Berry shared her story with First Lady Melania Trump during a D.C. roundtable. “Elliston was the impetus for this bill, but sadly, we are seeing women and teenage girls being targeted over and over again,” Cruz said. In April, the Take it Down Act passed the House, making it the first ever U.S. legislation to regulate AI-induced harms. When President Donald Trump signed the bill into law, he was flanked by Berry. Berry and McAdams aren’t done. Today, they’re working to develop a curriculum about AI awareness for schools across the U.S. They’re also collaborating on AI recognition software that can flag potentially harmful images to be removed from digital platforms quickly. “Working on the Take It Down Act helped heal my pain,” Berry tells TIME. “It gave me a voice and a passion for making change. I will continue to make my voice heard and my message that I am not a victim, but a survivor.” Elliston Berry: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2025 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305815/elliston-berry/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305815/elliston-berry/"},"headline":"Elliston Berry","datePublished":"2025-08-26T19:00:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T11:54:41.718Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305815/elliston-berry/","keywords":["Tech","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades","TIME100 AI 2025"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde6112025d5a519e/6998c9261500fb6bf2aa688d/Elliston-Berry.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Andrew R. Chow","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/andrew-r-chow/"}],"creator":"Andrew R. Chow","articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde6112025d5a519e/6998c9261500fb6bf2aa688d/Elliston-Berry.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305815/elliston-berry/","name":"Elliston Berry"}}]}] ```