From Google to Cloudflare, Tech Industry's Unwitting Fuel to the Disturbing Deepfake Porn Epidemic

Deepfake pornography, a disturbing product of the AI era, poses grave concerns for privacy and consent. The technology industry, unwittingly or not, has played a substantial role in the rise of this disconcerting trend.

Internet celebrity Kaitlyn Siragusa, more renowned as Amouranth, frequently combats unauthorized deepfake videos featuring her likeness. Each discovery prompts her team to lodge complaints with search giants like Alphabet Inc's GOOG GOOGL Google, but the battle is relentless, Bloomberg reports.

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The frequency of nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes has soared, marking a ninefold spike since 2019. 

An independent analyst, Genevieve Oh, unveiled that around 150,000 videos received 3.8 billion views across 30 platforms as of May 2023. 

Many platforms brazenly display deepfakes of high-profile celebrities, while others entice users with opportunities to produce custom illicit content.

Giants like Google, Amazon.com Inc AMZN, X (previously known as Twitter), and Microsoft Corp MSFT offer tools and platforms that inadvertently fuel the deepfake porn epidemic. 

For instance, Google has been a primary traffic source to these sites, while Cloudflare, Inc. NET and Amazon's web hosting solutions provide infrastructure to several platforms.

Victims of nonconsensual deepfake pornography face enormous hurdles in the U.S., given the absence of federal laws that criminalize this content. While 13 states have enacted laws addressing the issue, the legislative landscape remains fractured, and enforcement is challenging, as attorney Matthew Ferraro of WilmerHale LLP noted.

Tech policy professionals and victims are rallying to curtail the spread of deepfakes by pressuring tech conglomerates to delist and disavow AI-generated harmful content. 

To thwart the ubiquity of deepfakes, these advocates urge search engines and social media platforms to be more proactive. 

Current statistics from web analytics firm SimilarWeb reveal alarming trends: from July 2020 to July 2023, traffic to top deepfake websites surged by 285%, with Google as the primary traffic source.

Many deepfake platforms rely on web hosting services from companies like Cloudflare. Furthermore, tools facilitating the creation of these videos, like Stability AI's open-source model, are readily accessible, perpetuating the proliferation of deepfake content.

Users can download several applications recommended for crafting deepfake pornographic content from mobile app stores run by tech titans such as Apple Inc AAPL and Google. Some of these have witnessed staggering download numbers, reflecting the scale of the issue.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.