Mr. Deepfakes, one of the largest site for nonconsensual deepfake pornography, is shutting down for good. The site recently posted a notice on its site, saying that it has lost the ability to stay open.
“A critical service provider has terminated service permanently. Data loss has made it impossible to continue operation. We will not be relaunching. Any website claiming this is fake.” said a notice on the site. “This domain will eventually expire and we are not responsible for future use. This message will be removed around one week.”
For the uninitiated, Deepfake pornography is sex videos that typically feature the face of a famous person, typically famous actresses, that have been superimposed onto the face of a performer through the use of AI. Again, this is all done without the consent of the actresses in question.
Governments around the world have tried or are still trying to make the creation and sharing of deepfake porn illegal, with some varying levels of success. in the US, the country’s Congress passed the “Take It Down” bill, which requires all online porn platforms to remove such content.
In the UK, the government still struggles with deepfake porn, primarily because while it is illegal to share such content, its laws still allow people to create said content.
It also doesn’t help that the creators of Mr. Deepfakes are still technically anonymous. German news outlet Der Spiegel claimed to have tracked down one of them, a person who currently resides in Toronto, Canada. But again, it isn’t clear if the person is the sole owner of the deepfake site or if they are part of a bigger group.
(Source: Engadget, 404 Media, Der Spiegel)
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