Deepfake

• The most popular website dedicated to sexualised deepfakes, usually created and shared without consent, receives around 17 million hits a month.
• There has also been an exponential rise in “nudifying” apps which transform ordinary images of women and girls into nudes.
• When Jodie, the subject of a new BBC Radio File on 4 documentary, received an anonymous email telling her she’d been deepfaked, she was devastated.
• Her sense of violation intensified when she found out the man responsible was someone who’d been a close friend for years.

Deepfake creation itself is a violation

• In the House of Lords, Charlotte Owen described deepfake abuse as a “new frontier of violence against women” and called for creation to be criminalised.
• Creation may be about sexual fantasy, but it is also about power and control, and the humiliation of women.
• Men’s sense of sexual entitlement over women’s bodies pervades the internet chat rooms where sexualised deepfakes and tips for their creation are shared.
• As with all forms of image-based sexual abuse, deepfake porn is about telling women to get back in their box and to get off the internet.

Taking the law further

• A law that only criminalises the distribution of deepfake porn ignores the fact that the non-consensual creation of the material is itself a violation.
• As well as the criminal law laying the foundation for education and cultural change, it can impose greater obligations on internet platforms.
• With women sharing their deep despair that their futures are in the hands of the “unpredictable behaviour” and “rash” decisions of men, it’s time for the law to address this threat.

Clare McGlynn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.