Topline
The prime minister of Italy is seeking more than $100,000 in damages in a defamation case against two men who are accused of creating deepfake pornography videos of her and circulating them online, where they racked up millions of views in several months, several outlets reported Wednesday.
Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Oct. 16, 2023.
Key Facts
Two unnamed men, one age 40 and his 73-year-old father, are accused of defamation after investigators say they created pornography videos featuring Meloni by placing her face on someone else's body and then posting them online, the BBC reported.
Those videos were viewed "millions of times" on a United States-based porn website, according to Italian news agency ANSA, and Meloni will testify in the defamation case this summer.
A lawyer for the prime minister told ANSA the damages being sought by Meloni, €100,000 or about $108,500, are "symbolic" and will be used to support female victims of abuse if she wins the case, investigation of which first started in 2020 (the BBC notes that some defamation cases in Italy can be criminal and lead to custodial sentences).
Meloni, the plaintiff in the case, said in the complaint she wants to send a message "to all women who are victims of this kind of abuse of power not to be afraid to press charges," according to German press agency DPA.
Key Background
The term "deepfake” originated near the end of 2017 when a Reddit moderator created a subreddit with the name and started posting videos that swapped the faces of celebrities onto the bodies in existing pornographic videos. Now, the term is used to describe any kind of such realistic—but fake—videos, images or audio clips that pose people in situations they've never been in. Deepfakes that have gone viral over the last decade include a video of Queen Elizabeth delivering a fake Christmas address in 2020 and fake images of former President Donald Trump posing with Black voters. Both celebrities and everyday citizens have increasingly been victims of deepfake pornography, CNN reported last year, with one of the most prominent websites for such content averaging about 14 million hits a month as of October. As artificial intelligence tools and other software continue to make it easier to produce such content, countries around the world are struggling to hold its creators accountable. Few countries have any regulations surrounding the creation of deepfakes, the New York Times reported, despite digital forgeries creating an increasing risk of crimes like cyberbullying, stock manipulation and identity theft. Some American states have created laws to address the issue of pornographic deepfakes, including California, Florida, New York and Texas. Earlier this month, a Florida man who created deepfake porn of his middle and high school classmates was sentenced to six months in prison and was classified as a sex offender.
Big Number
96%. That's the percentage of deepfake material online that is pornographic, according to the Guardian.
Tangent
A number of celebrities have spoken up in the last few years about their images being superimposed into pornography and circulated online. Photos of actress Emma Watson that were taken when she was a teenager were pasted onto a pornographic video and used in advertisements for an app that makes deepfake videos. Other ads used the face of Scarelett Johansson. Kristen Bell spoke out after her face was featured in deep fake porn in 2020, and other victims have included Natalie Portman, Gal Gadot, Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton. Early this year, deepfake pornography of Taylor Swift went viral on X, formerly known as Twitter, and the fake content was seen tens of million times before it was removed. The explicit images started a conversation about what the star could do about the images, but the lack of federal laws on the issue gives little recourse to victims.
Surprising Fact
It’s not just pornography. Several Hollywood big-shots have seen their likeness stolen and used online for other reasons, including actor Tom Hanks, who last year warned fans that he had “nothing to do with” circulating advertisements for a dental plan using deepfakes. Jennifer Aniston's image was used to create fake advertisements creating a MacBook giveaway and a similar scheme used deepfakes of popular YouTuber MrBeast.
Further Reading
