By Emma Landsburgh
The idea for deep fakes originated in 2014, since then they have slowly risen to being a part of popular culture. Everyone has seen the video of Bill Hader morphing into Tom Cruise on a late-night chat show. Some of these deep fakes are used as satire for politicians or in films, warping faces of public figures and creating false events. Some have feared these types of videos would become a security threat to politicians. deep fakes are basically a branch off photoshopping, but these changes are applied to videos. It uses a form of artificial intelligence called deep learning. However, deep fakes have started to verge into a different realm, away from satire and into breeding a new form of revenge porn.
In September of 2019, the AI firm Deeptrace saw a rise in deep fake videos. They found 15,000 deep fake videos, 96% being pornographic. Unfortunately, it is very easy to create a deep fake video with only needing a few photos of the victim. The easy access to this has led to the internet amassing a large amount of this forged revenge porn. Women are often the victims of these fraudulent videos. Danielle Citron, a Professor of Law stated that these videos are ‘weaponised against women’. The rise in these types of videos are having a negative impact upon women's lives as they are believed to be real. These videos can negatively impact women’s careers, relationships, and mental health. Many do not know that these types of videos are being made about them until they are told.
The pornographic deep fake videos are often uploaded onto porn sites. From this point these videos spiral as they become uncontrollable and the creator almost untraceable. Especially as many chatroom sites host deep fake forums where a kind of marketplace is held, and people can pay to have a deep fake created. This allows the form of technology to become even more accessible to anyone. The new world of deep fakes shows a deeply disturbing and sadistic view of technology. People are utilising this technology to attack and assault friends, co-workers, classmates, ex-partners. In 2020, it has only been made easier due to the creation of a new app. Meaning realistic videos can be made using the smart phones most rely on in their daily life.
This new form of revenge porn has impacted both celebrities and normal women. Scarlett Johansson has been a victim of a pornographic deep fake that was posted on a porn site and has been viewed 1.5 million times. Gal Gadot has also been a victim on a Reddit account. Anita Sarkeesian, a media critic, was put into a fake video that was viewed 30,000 times on Pornhub. There are many cases of women finding explicit videos with their faces in them even though they have never filmed any sexually explicit content. Consent is completely removed from these women, as they are completely exposed as there is a lack of protection for these types of deep fakes. These videos attack women at the most vulnerable point.
Currently the law does not consider deep fakes when looking at revenge porn. Often it is thought to be too hard to trace and these types of videos are protected in a sort of legal grey area. There have been attempts when criminalising these videos to look at fraud and identity theft. Sadly, when considering these videos many have thought they could be protected by the idea of free speech, especially in America due to the First Amendment. However, a law needs to be set up in order to protect those who have been victims of these videos. Often these videos are aligned with jokes and satire, but they hold the power to enact malicious intentions.
Pornhub and Reddit have banned the videos, but often new videos replace these ones. Pornhub has never been amazing for regulating the content posted on their site. Google has also put ‘involuntary synthetic pornographic imagery’ to its ban list. There is not enough safeguarding on these websites, many times these types of videos seep through. More needs to be done, these fake pornographic videos cannot continuously resurface to be used against the victims. Laws need to be created to protect from the growing popularity of deep fakes.
Videos have always been seen to be authentic but the increase in deep fake technology has completely ruined this idea. We can no longer take everything at face value. Proper regulation needs to come into place to ensure that people hiding behind a screen cannot have complete control over people's lives. Women have been disproportionately affected by these videos, and they are often left with no justice or safety. The victims are left vulnerable with no protection online or in their life off the computer. The use of deep fakes has deviated from the original intentions, it should no longer be an easily accessible app.
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