Around 4,000 celebrities have fallen victim to deepfake pornography. The development has increased massively in the last year alone, reports the British broadcaster Channel 4. An investigative team from the news channel analyzed the most visited deepfake websites on the Internet.
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The very idea is a nightmare for many: seeing your own face in a porn film. With the spread of artificial intelligence, the number of deepfakes constructed without consensus has increased massively, reports Channel 4. The investigative research team analyzed the most visited deepfake websites and found around 4,000 prominent victims. One of these is Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman. “It's pretty scary that there's someone out there who put this together. I can't see them, but they see this made-up version, this fake version of me.”
Massive increase in the past year
In 2016, only one deepfake porn video could be found, the research showed. But in the first three quarters of 2023 alone, 143,733 new manipulated pornographic films came online – more than in all previous years combined. The spread of such counterfeits has a massive impact on the mental health of those affected and can haunt them for the rest of their lives, experts warn.
According to an independent analysis, the videos from the 40 most visited deepfake pornography sites collected 4.2 billion clicks. More than 70 percent of the traffic for the five most visited pages comes from search engines such as Google.
Legal regulations are only slowly finding their way
Deepfakes of singer Taylor Swift recently caused a stir. The issue of dealing with artificial intelligence is also a political issue. Just a few days ago, the EU Parliament passed the Artificial Intelligence Regulation, better known as the AI Act. This means that in the future there will at least be an obligation to label AI-generated representations.
With regard to deepfakes and the unwanted sharing of intimate images, the European Parliament took a further step in the fight against violence against women at the beginning of February: the agreement on the first EU legal act on violence against women and domestic violence includes, among other things, non-consensual violence To criminalize the sharing of intimate images, cyberstalking, cyberbullying and incitement to violence or hatred online in the EU. The Member States' representatives in the Council still have to approve the agreement and the final legal act must be adopted by the Council and Parliament.
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The non-profit organization HateAid, which, among other things, advocates for human rights in the digital space, launched a petition with other actors in the fight against deepfake porn at the Ministry of Digital Affairs at the end of 2023 and welcomes the agreement. “Misogynistic digital violence aims to humiliate, intimidate and push women out of public discourse. With the new directive as a minimum standard for future legislation in Europe, the EU recognizes that attacks against women threaten our society as a whole,” says Josephine Ballon, Managing Director from HateAid in a press release.
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