Sex Crimes: Deepfakes and Revenge Porn

Just watched a movie called Another Body. It’s basically about a master’s degree college student who discovers deepfake porn videos of herself. In the process of uncovering the culprit, she finds 2 other women who had been victimized, one being her former classmate. What is deepfake? In layman’s terms, it’s Photoshop for videos. So the way you can completely alter images with Photoshop, you can completely manipulate and create new footage from existing videos by (for example) switching faces etc. So a loser could add a girl’s face to a porn video and make it look like the girl is actually having sex.

Which brings me to revenge porn. Usually, revenge porn is from guys who got pissed off at their ex for whatever petty reason that they publish their intimate moments on porn websites like Pornhub. As can be seen from the movie referenced above, though, a form of revenge porn can also be made just from mentally ill, socially-isolated losers who take their wrath of being ignored by their female interests, onto the Internet and ‘make them pay’ (ooh, so manly).

While the film was partly a difficult watch, it kind of bored me out a bit because I’ve covered so much porn already that I just lost interest – but I’ve been wanting to write about deepfake for some time. Mostly because I personally think it’s one hell of an invention that can wreak havoc in the wrong hands, as can be seen in the movie.

Is a gun bad or good? It’s neither, it’s simply a tool. In the hands of a deranged mass shooter, a gun is a living nightmare. When a soldier or police officer takes out such a shooter, thereby saving dozens of innocent bystanders, the gun is like sent from Heaven. Deepfake can have its amazing benefits. Like in the creative industry, for example. We could see historical biopics being made, like Hitler’s last moments in the bunker, etc. Remember when Forrest Gump met JFK? That was an early application of deepfake, though not as sophisticated as now.

Misusing deepfake technology, however, is an outright horror. Because it’s so convincing, it is almost impossible to tell if something is real or fake. And the implications are far-reaching. Criminals can blackmail people of interest in exchange for ransom etc. Jealous and scorned ex-lovers or side-chicks can make deepfakes of men just to ruin their marriages, etc. Innocent people’s lives can be destroyed just because some low-life out there thinks it’s justified to do so. Like, ‘She was a bitch! How dare she not greet me!’ Sound familiar? Yeah, losers with power are a dangerous mix.

Another nefarious use of deepfake is in quelling dissent. Nowadays, in the age of growing censorship of alternative, non-popular views on mainstream platforms, governments can create deepfakes of activists and targeted leaders to incriminate them in crimes and compromises they didn’t engage in. And the videos would be so real, so plausible, your average Joe would believe it if he saw it on the news. That’s how dangerous deepfake is. Its abuse is a true threat to a country’s democracy – not synchronized propaganda spewed out at the same time.

Like with AI potentially taking jobs, I only support the widespread use of deepfake if it is not only regulated by governments (in the interest of the people, ie government agencies not also misusing it for illegal censoring and blackmailing activities), but also only used in non-destructive, productive ways like movie-making etc (goes without saying).

I’m going to stop here, I’m kind of fed up with all these sex crimes and porn issues. Below are more links you can research on your own. Enjoy (meant sarcastically).

4Chan – In the movie Another Body, they referenced 4Chan and it’s an anonymous image-sharing site where people across the web can request illegal deepfakes of other people based off images they share of them. So if I were a loser I could deepfake a video from an ex, based on a bunch of pictures I have of her. The technology does the rest. Scary world we live in. Especially for women.

Mr Deepfakes – While there are numerous deepfake porn sites mentioned in the movie, I only checked out one, and frankly it was disturbing. Here you have a porn site that features ultra-realistic porn videos of celebrities (like I said, deepfake). I don’t have the stomach to go through it so happy puking.

Sex Crimes – Google search.

Revenge Porn – Google search.

And to end with the cherry on top, last night when I checked out 4Chan for the first time, I went to 2 sections: ‘Sexy Beautiful Women’ and ‘Adult Requests’. They’re both in the Adult section on the right. I was just going through the pics, I remember one category had loads of dick pics with female pics right next to them (sort of like to explain how the deepfake should be, presumably to depict a blowjob). One category, though, I can’t remember which one, had 2 pics of a black-haired teenage girl (16, 17 at the most). In the first, she was lying belly down, taking a selfie of herself topless in bed. The next picture was of her topless showing her breasts, looking into the camera. And you can clearly see she’s a minor. Now because this site is anonymous and people only use pseudonyms, you can see that even sites like 4Chan can be used in the publication and distribution of child pornography. I tried looking for that same page a while ago, couldn’t find it. There’s too much new content added since then and I’m not about to go through all that smut.

See for yourself and be the judge. Gone are the days of crime only being perceived as some dark alley stuff. Or online, only if you’re on the dark web. Crime is widespread throughout the Internet and society and publically accessible through Google. It’s hiding in plain sight and is often right in front of your face. Like they say, the best place to hide a body is on the second page of Google.

Nuff said.

Anyway, I’m out. Watch Another Body, it’s a good movie and teaches you a lot about the deepfake and sex crime industry – and how the perpetrator can really be someone you know!