Deepfake porn is out of control
Many of the sites make it clear that they are hosting or distributing deepfake porn videos – often with the word Deepfakes or derivatives thereof in their name. The top two websites each contain 44,000 videos, while five others host more than 10,000 deepfake videos. Most of them have several thousand videos, while some only list a few hundred. Some of the videos analyzed by the researcher have been viewed millions of times.
The investigation also identified an additional 300 general pornography websites that contain non-consensual deepfake pornography in some way. The researcher says “leak” websites and sites designed to repost images of people on social media also contain deepfake images. A photography website claims it has “disrobed” people in 350,000 photos.
It is incredibly difficult to measure the full extent of deepfake videos and images online. It’s difficult to track where content is being shared on social media. Abusive content is also shared in private message groups or closed channels, often by people known to the victims. In September, more than 20 girls aged 11 to 17 in the Spanish town of Almendralejo came forward after nude photos of them were created using AI tools without her knowledge.
“The availability of AI tools to create deepfake non-consensual pornographic images has increased significantly and the demand for this type of content on pornography platforms and illegal online networks has increased,” says Asher Flynn, associate professor at Monash University in Australia, which focuses on AI and technology-enabled abuse. This is only likely to increase with new generative AI tools.
Many websites and tools for creating deepfake videos or images are accessed through search. Millions of people are directed to the websites the researcher analyzed, with 50 to 80 percent of people finding their way to the websites through search. Finding deepfake videos via search is trivial and requires no special knowledge of what to look for.
The problem is global. Using a VPN, the researcher tested Google searches in Canada, Germany, Japan, the USA, Brazil, South Africa and Australia. In all tests, deepfake websites appeared prominently in search results. The videos often target celebrities, streamers and content creators. Maddocks says the spread of deepfakes has become “endemic” and is what many researchers first feared when the first deepfake videos emerged Notoriety in December 2017.
