Scarlett Johansson is one of hundreds of celebrities who've been undressed by deepfake technology. Credit: Laurent KOFFEL/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

It would be naive to assume that, because youâve never performed in a porn video, you will never appear in one. In fact, these days, anyone with access to an image of your face can, in a matter of seconds produce an extremely convincing video in which you appear as a porn star.
One man who has done this countless times, to countless women, without their consent, is one Mr Deepfakes. As the founder of the most prominent deepfake porn website in existence, he has chosen to remain anonymous. He built the burgeoning community âfrom scratchâ as a side hustle, after deepfake porn was banned from Reddit in 2018. It is, he claims, a place where âusers affected by the ban could goâ, to ensure the technology wasnât unfairly âsquashedâ. MDF, as he styles himself, cites a commitment to free speech, and a desire to advance machine learning, as his sole motivations.
But in Deepfake Porn: Could you be next? MDF comes across as a man struggling with âthe more moral aspectâ of his work. On the one hand, he ardently claims to respect women (â100%â!) and insists this principle is reconcilable with his passion project. On the other, he has no plans to tell his wife â who would âprobably be againstâ deepfake porn, âto put it bluntlyâ â about his work. âIâm afraid of how it would affect her, knowing I work on something like this.â He admits that âthe content is actually in a grey area, and I think weâre on a fine lineâ.
Despite this ethical âindecisionâ, MDFâs website is thriving. It has amassed more than 20,000 deepfake videos of women loosely defined as âcelebritiesâ, who are divided into 23 categories that include âCosplayâ, âThreesomeâ and âAsian Celebâ. Each day, an average of 25 new videos are added by a team of deepfake porn producers. There are 13 million original visitors who view this content every month, 10,000 of whom are online at any given moment.
In these videos, the facial expressions, mannerisms, and idiosyncrasies of the deepfaked subject do not belong to the victim whose face we see. They are the creation of a male fantasy. It not only looks like the victim is performing porn, when they never have, but also that they are engaging in the producerâs favourite sexual acts. Their identity is hijacked. When a victim sees herself embodied in the form of a porn performer, she describes it to me as a feeling of extreme disassociation. That is her face, but that is not her body.
Mr Deepfakes rakes in a high four-figure profit per month, mostly from ad revenue. Heâs probably earning upwards of $100,000 a year from the venture. This money goes mostly to âmaintaining the serversâ.
Most of his effort, meanwhile, goes to imposing strict ethics on his website. Or so he claims. MDF recites his boundaries to minimise harm like a script: no porn niches that are âdefamatoryâ; only âcelebritiesâ allowed; the age limit is absolute; and producers must âmake sure people know that these are fake videosâ by ensuring âevery video is watermarkedâ. But ultimately, MDFâs defence always comes down to separating the videosâ potential consequences from their creators. âWeâre not all bad people!â
MDF claims he is simply an advocate of technological progress. He is, he says, facilitating the improvement of AI, while âother communities like Reddit wouldnât allow itâ. It just so happens that the best way to do this is through the âporn nicheâ: a convenient assumption that MDF treats as an awkward but inevitable fact. The âcommunityâ forum, the section of the website where content creators discuss how to improve results, is therefore what he cares about most. It fails to generate any revenue, at least for now. But this is hardly a charitable venture. This âcommunityâ is working to develop a tool thatâs being used as a weapon against women.
And the ethical boundaries imposed by Mr Deepfakes fall apart on close inspection. There is no clear definition, for instance, of a âcelebrityâ. It includes women in the âmainstream mediaâ, like those who appear in âHollywood filmsâ, but also âsocial media influencersâ. And of course, âpoliticians are in the public domainâ, so they can be targeted too. It is, in short, any woman with a public life. Many of these female âcelebritiesâ already receive so much sexualised publicity in the media that MDFâs community think they are âfair gameâ. Or in the words of one user on the forum: âIf you plaster your face everywhere and thirst trap me into seeking out your visage, then Iâm just gonna deepfake you into porn.â
The majority of Mr Deepfakes community are âprobably menâ, he admits. Male users who are becoming radicalised by getting to âpick and choose aspects of different girlsâ, and digitally manipulate them into performing sexual acts.
Disturbingly, one regular poster on the site admits to deepfaking his co-workers. âWalking into work after having deepfaked these women, it did feel odd, but I just controlled my nerves. I can act like nothing is wrong, no one would suspect a thing.â The video is for his eyes only, he insists; it now exists on his hard drive, which he sees as merely an extension of his imagination. Asked if he would create a custom deepfake of an ordinary woman for someone else, he replied: âFrom a moral standpoint, yeah, I donât think thereâs anything that would stop me.â He went on to make a deepfake of someone after a Zoom call.
The forums on MDFâs site seethe with misogyny, illustrating how utterly ineffective his ethical code is. âShe didnât let me smash her during highschool so cool. ima just deepfake u on porn and masturbate to it? CHECKMATE HOE,â one user writes. âIt is never better when deepfake kicks in, and you get to make your dream celebrity be a mindless robot, and obey masters orders,â posted another.
Even those who have built a living on the porn industry are alarmed by the havoc deepfake technology could wreak on womenâs lives. âThe principal concern I have is how quickly the technology is evolving. Itâs like a runaway freight train,â warns Viktor Zafirovski, a reviewer at the worldâs largest porn directory website. Not only is it increasingly accessible, but they are getting easier to create.We will reach a point when âeveryone will have to be paranoid about sharing their image,â says Viktor. And having made a small fortune developing this latest tool in the misogynistâs arsenal, even the man at the helm of the deepfake porn industry agrees. âIt will be so convincing, that eventually you canât identify whatâs real and whatâs fake,â MDF says. âYou know, itâs scary to me as well.â
Underneath this cloak of concern for women, Mr Deepfakes must know that he empowers misogynists every day. âPorn runs the world right now. And itâs not something that I agree with with,â he says. Regardless, itâs something he leverages, even as he strives to distance himself from the culture he enables.
MDF doesnât like to imagine how his wife would feel âif she found a video of herself on the internet â or maybe even a deepfake porn video of someone she knowsâ. But there are hundreds of women who, if they visited his site, might have the kind of horrifying realisation he wouldnât want his loved ones to experience. The most frustrating thing is, he admits to feeling some discomfort. âI think I need to, you know, look deep down and see what Iâm okay with,â he reflects. But his site remains live, and he keeps making money from it.
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