Ride the Lightning

Deepfake Videos Overwhelmingly Used to Degrade Women

December 19, 2019

I've spent a lot of time, on RTL and offline, worrying about the possible effect of deepfake videos on the 2020 election.

While that's a real concern, I was blown away by the stats in a post published by Vox a couple of months ago. The post looked at a report from Deeptrace Labs. The most startling statistic to me was that 96% of fake videos across the internet are of women, mostly celebrities, whose images are used in sexual fantasy deepfakes without their consent.

Deeptrace Labs identified 14,678 deepfake videos across a number of streaming platforms and porn sites, a 100 percent increase over its previous measurement of 7,964 videos in December of 2018.

Sadly, I imagine we'll see a surge in lawyers representing exploited celebrities whose publicity rights have been violated. Far worse, I am quite sure those women (non-celebrities too) feel physically violated by these images. Revenge porn (targeting ex-girlfriends/wives) has also been taken to a whole new level.

The top four websites dedicated to hosting deepfakes received a combined 134 million views on such videos.

There are places you go on the Internet (I'm not going to give them publicity here) with a lineup of celebrities. Their faces move, smile and blink as you move around them. They are fully nude, waiting for you to decide what you'll to them as you peruse a menu of sex positions. Inevitably, because there is so much money to be made, the sex will be of all kinds, including rape.

I briefly watched a snippet from one of the videos. It was creepy and nauseating. To think that a real woman somewhere would have to cope with seeing herself manipulated by a user in this manner is horrific. And of course, those behind the videos will move to using children as well. Because they can and because there is a market. The full force of the law needs to stop revenge porn, the violation of publicity rights of celebrities, and the non-consensual use of anyone's face in these videos. Where the laws are currently insufficient, we need new and stronger laws. It would be a good way to start the next decade.

Ride the Lightning will be on sabbatical until January 6. Happy holidays to all and may everyone have a happy and healthy 2020!

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225|Fairfax, VA 22030
Email: Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
https://senseient.com
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