Sweet Anita, a 32-year-old British social media star with more than 1.9 million Twitch followers, has been left deeply disturbed after discovering that her face has been digitally superimposed into deepfake pornography clips.
Anita has never made sexual content, but her image has been used in X-rated deepfake films without her consent. The nonconsensual use of someone’s image in pornography could lead to damaging outcomes, but the US only has laws prohibiting deepfakes in Texas, Virginia, and California. Anita’s likeness was being featured in internet porn without her consent in January, and she was horrified to find that multiple pornographic deepfakes using her image had been published online.
Anita fears that the mass circulation of her misused image will have lasting ramifications. She said, “This was nonconsensual, and the impacts are permanent. This will impact my life in a similar way to revenge porn, so I’m just frustrated, tired and numb.”
She has been wrongfully highlighted in raunchy digital content before, with people photoshopping still images to have her face on porn. People have amassed huge collections of clips of her getting up and walking away from the camera during live streams to look at her body, even though it’s clothed. There are people who make whole Reddit forums just to roleplay as her, where they pretend to be Sweet Anita and ask for spicy DMs.
Anita noted a perceived “lack of empathy” from online gamers, who often “blame women” for the distasteful deepfake content. “It’s really, really difficult,” she added, “but the greatest challenge so far has been trying to explain to people the real genuine impact on people’s lives and how permanent it is, too.”
Last month, Google searches for “deepfake porn” skyrocketed 1,000% in the UK, and in the weeks since, Sweet Anita, as well as other social media personalities, including Los Angeles-based Twitch star QTCinderella, 28, have discovered they’ve been targeted in deepfake porn. Searches for “how to make a deepfake” rose 120%, and searches for “are deepfakes illegal” soared a staggering 5,000%.
Anita said, “It could potentially get you fired from jobs in the future if people think you’ve done sex work. It affects your security [and] how people treat you. You are stigmatized.” Anita has to spend thousands of dollars to take legal action, confront the perpetrators, and get the material taken down, in addition to the cost of therapy to help cope with the trauma.
Deepfakes use artificial intelligence and machine learning software to replace the likeness of one person with another in videos and other digital media. High-powered women such as Emma Watson, Gal Gadot, Scarlett Johansson, and Michelle Obama have all been targeted in X-rated deepfake films.
