‘A Deepfake Porn Plot Intended to Silence Me’: exploring continuities between pornographic and ‘political’ deep fakes

Deepfakes on Twitter: Which Actors Control Their Spread?

“…The nodes with the most favorable positions in the structure converse on fake videos related to politicians (H1). This coincides with studies such as those by Maddocks (2020) which explain that, although most of the deepfakes that spread over the Internet are pornographic in nature, public attention is focused above all on political deepfakes because of their ability to generate political instability. In contrast, other authors such as Westerlund (2019) conclude that the reason many counterfeits focus on celebrities and politicians is basically because they are public figures who have a large number of free videos and photos on the Internet and it is an easy way to train an AI deepfake system.…”

“…They are at the leading edge of online, video-based disinformation and, if left unchallenged, could have profound implications for journalism, citizen competence, and the quality of democracy" (Vaccari & Chadwick, 2020, p. 2). In this sense, according to Maddocks (2020), most of the deepfakes that are spread on the Internet today are pornographic in nature, but public attention is typically focused on political deepfakes. Often simulating the image of high-profile politicians, these videos spread hoaxes and lead to political instability.…”

Digital microaggressions and everyday othering: an analysis of tweets sent to women members of Parliament in the UK

“…Such treatment has already been thoroughly established in traditional media coverage (see, for example, Ross, 2002). More recently, and in the online context, there has been a spate of 'cheapfakes' or 'deepfakes' produced where images of female politicians' faces are digitally placed on other images or videos, sometimes pornographic, without their consent (Southern & Harmer, 2019;Maddocks, 2020). These practices serve to undermine the contribution that women make to the political sphere.…”

Problematising reality: the promises and perils of synthetic media

“…Still, even for the less-resourced, deepfakes may prove to be a viable tool, for example in trying to harass activists of the opposite camp by placing their images in pornographic videos or other types of content that the victims would likely find unpleasant and disturbing (see e.g. Maddocks 2020 ). For those reasons, it is extremely likely that deepfakes will feature, in some capacity, in the elections to come.…”