Deep Fake Revenge Porn is Both Easy to Get and Impossible to Stop

Twitch streamers are notorious for going after other streamers. Not sure how that started, but it is a thing.

Two weeks ago, Twitch streamer Brandon Ewing (aka Atrioc) was doing a live stream for his 318,000 followers and, supposedly, inadvertently showed his open browser tabs showing that he visited a website selling deep fake porn – AI generated, non-consensual pornographic videos of other Twitch streamers.

Not surprisingly, given that Twitch is a predominantly male world, screenshots circulated with the name of the site, the images and the name of a number of other, only female, streamers who were also victims of this deep fake porn.

While Brandon has been apologetic, the damage is done. The deepfake porn videos of this person are available everywhere now.

She has a remarkable attitude under the circumstances and has been very open about the situation.

While she has been open about it, it has taken a toll on her. Ever since the incident, strangers have been sending her non-consensual pornographic images of herself. She has been the target of relentless harassment, as are many of the other women who’s images were on the site.

Consider this. While this person is a stranger and you will likely never cross paths with her in your life, what if this happens to your daughter or your wife. Note that these deep fakes are rarely, if ever, of men.

For many victims, they have a psychological affect as intense as if the video was real. Since the deep fakes are morphed onto porn models, anyone who has body image issues is likely to impacted. The victim in this story said “It is so convincingly my body, but not my body, and holy sh*t, my body will never be as perfect as that girl’s body. My body will never be as skinny, I’ll never be as perky as that body. At least in my eyes”.

How do you explain this to your family?

If you think the law is on your side, forget it. Only a few states have laws against spreading malicious non-consensual porn, although many states do have laws against spreading non-consensual porn. The cost, time and pain of the litigation all falls on the victim. Even if the victim is successful, which is never clear whether it will be, how do you undo the damage?

Think about the impact on your family if someone posts images like these and the victim is a family member of yours. How does the victim explain this to her parents? Grandparents? Children? Spouse or significant other?

While this victim did not want to be the spokesperson for this, she has chosen to be one as the only way to deal with the situation. She said that she hopes that in 10 years, when her nieces are more on the Internet, she doesn’t have to explain this to them.

While the original website has been taken down, the images and videos are all over the Internet and will likely remain there for eternity. Credit: Motherboard

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