Julia, 21, received doctored nude photos of herself generated by artificial intelligence. A phenomenon in full explosion.
“I had already heard of deepfakes and deepnudes (…) But I wasn’t really aware of it before it happened to me. It was a somewhat anecdotal event that happened in the lives of others, but which would not happen in mine,” thought Julia, a 21-year-old Belgian marketing student and semi-professional model.
At the end of September 2023, she received an email from an anonymous author. Subject: “Realistic?” “We wonder which photo would look best on you,” she reads.
Attached are five photos of her.
On the original content, published on her social networks, Julia poses dressed. Before his eyes, they are the same photos. Only this time, Julia is completely naked.
Julia has never posed nude. She never took these photos. The Belgian model understands that she was a victim of deepfake.
Hyperfaking
Deepfakes, or hyperfakes, are false photo, video or audio content made or modified using artificial intelligenceoften hyper realistic.
The individual used an artificial intelligence application to remove her clothes.
Julia threatens to file a complaint. Her interlocutor tries to dissuade her and claims to want to “make her aware of the dangers of artificial intelligence”. “Everyone does that,” he trivializes.
The next day, the young woman filed a complaint at the police station “out of duty”.
“I really wanted to do it for statistical purposes and because I didn’t want to let it happen,” she explains.
She is warned that the “prosecutor’s office is overwhelmed” and that there is “very little chance” that her complaint will be successful, the student recalls.
She confides in her mother and those close to her, testifies on her social networks and receives a lot of support from her subscribers. “There were some who wanted to help me, there were some who just sent a little note,” explains the student who says she is “very well surrounded”.
Julia also receives testimonies from other victims. In their case, “it was more in the context of revenge porn,” she explains. “It’s something that is much more common than we think,” warns the model who is worried about this trivialization.
After taking a month’s break from modeling – “I no longer wanted to shoot” – the model resumed her projects.
European directive
“The platforms are clearly not doing enough,” regrets the student.
“The law itself is there, it is created, but it is not implemented,” she considers.
A European directive on violence against women notably adopted stricter measures against cyberviolence in early February.
“It’s very good, but it’s too late. This had to be done before authorizing these applications on European territory, regrets Julia. I’m angry because these are things that could have been avoided, if it had been done correctly, in order.”
The young woman, who was received by the Belgian Secretary of State for Gender Equality Marie-Colline Leroyexpects public authorities to provide “effective support and resources” to identify the authors of deepfakes and force platforms to moderate their content.
7% of Belgians aged 15 to 25 have already created deepnudes, according to a study by the University of Antwerp.
She also encourages other people who are victims of deepnude to break the silence.
A growing phenomenon
The startup Home Security Heroes lists a total of 95,820 videos generated using artificial intelligence, online in 2023. This represents a 550% increase compared to 2019.
THE pornographic deepfakes represent 98% of deepfakes present on the web, according to its State of deepfakes report, published in 2023. 99% of people targeted are women.
No need to be an expert. Create a pornographic deepfake video for free takes less than 25 minutes and requires only one clear image of any individual, according to the same study.
For her part, the American analyst Genevieve Oh identifies over 275,000 pornographic deepfake videos on the web in the third quarter of 2023.