An AI-generated image of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in her underwear went viral last week. Meloni replied on Facebook with humour - but also with a warning that deserves attention: „The deepfake is a dangerous tool because it can deceive, manipulate, and target anyone. I can defend myself. Many others cannot."

That is a serious sentence. Meloni sits at the top of Italian politics - she has lawyers on retainer, she has PR teams, she has media capital and connections. But what happens when the same AI tool is turned on an ordinary woman, a teenager, a quiet schoolteacher in a small town? Italy became the first EU country to pass a comprehensive AI regulation in September 2025. The law introduced prison sentences for those who use AI to cause harm, including the creation of deepfake imagery.

The context for the Italian law was last year's scandal - a porn site published manipulated images of prominent Italian women, including Meloni and opposition leader Elly Schlein, with vulgar, sexist captions. It was the moment when the Italian parliament found a common language - Meloni's right and Schlein's left voted together. That alignment is rare.

The Balkans still has no legislation of any kind in this space. Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro - not one of these countries has a law that specifically covers deepfake imagery. Meanwhile, „virtual" nudes are already appearing among teenage girls in our schools, rewriting their entire social reality.

Meloni's warning is both practical and revealing. In a country where the prime minister has the power to push back - this still happens. What happens in countries where a woman in a similar situation has neither power nor media space? The Balkans should read the Italian law not as „a European standard to copy later", but as a delayed response to a problem that is already operating in our countries with no legal answer.