Major Deepfake Porn Site Shuts Down Amid Legal and Ethical Concerns

Largest deepfake porn site shuts down forever

The most popular online destination for deepfake porn shut down permanently this weekend, 404 Media reported. "Mr. Deepfakes" drew a swarm of toxic users who, researchers noted, were willing to pay as much as $1,500 for creators to use advanced face-swapping techniques to make celebrities or other targets appear in non-consensual pornographic videos. At its peak, researchers found that 43,000 videos were viewed more than 1.5 billion times on the platform. The videos were generated by nearly 4,000 creators, who profited from the unethical -- and now illegal -- sales. But as of this weekend, none of those videos are available to view, and the forums where requests were made for new videos went dark, 404 Media reported. According to a notice posted on the platform, the plug was pulled when "a critical service provider" terminated the service "permanently." "Data loss has made it impossible to continue operation," Mr. Deepfakes confirmed, while warning not to trust any impostor platforms that pop up in its absence. "We will not be relaunching. Any website claiming this is fake. This domain will eventually expire and we are not responsible for future use. This message will be removed around one week." It remains unclear exactly which service cut off Mr. Deepfakes, but researchers noted that among the "most crucial components" that deepfake creators needed to keep generating the content was "free-tier cloud GPU access" provided through Google Colab notebooks. Google did not immediately respond to Ars' request to comment on whether that access was recently yanked. The downfall of Mr. Deepfakes comes just after Congress passed the Take It Down Act, which makes it illegal to create and distribute non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including synthetic NCII generated by artificial intelligence. Any platform notified of NCII has 48 hours to remove it or else face enforcement actions from the Federal Trade Commission. Enforcement won't kick in until next spring, but the service provider may have banned Mr. Deepfakes in response to the passing of the law. Last year, Mr. Deepfakes preemptively started blocking visitors from the United Kingdom after the UK announced intentions to pass a similar law, Wired reported.

AI-generated porn site Mr. Deepfakes shuts down after service provider pulls support

Layla Ferris is a verification producer with CBS News Confirmed. She previously worked at ABC News and Storyful. She specializes in breaking news coverage, visual verification and open-source research. One of the largest websites dedicated to deepfake pornography announced that it has shut down after a critical service provider withdrew its support, effectively halting the site's operations. Mr. Deepfakes, created in 2018, has been described by researchers as "the most prominent and mainstream marketplace" for deepfake porn of celebrities, as well as individuals with no public presence. On Sunday, the website's landing page featured a "Shutdown Notice," saying it would not be relaunching. The site allowed users to upload and view deepfake porn videos created using artificial intelligence. Forums on the site allowed users to buy and sell custom nonconsensual deepfake content, as well as discuss practices for making deepfakes. The owner of the site remains unknown. The shutdown comes just days after Congress passed the "Take It Down Act," which makes it a federal crime to post nonconsensual sexual imagery, including explicit deepfakes. The legislation, backed by first lady Melania Trump, requires social media platforms and other websites to remove images and videos within 48 hours after a victim's request. While it's not clear if the website's termination was related to the Take It Down Act, it's the latest step in a crackdown on nonconsensual sexual imagery. Henry Ajder, an expert on AI and deepfakes, told CBS News that "this is a moment to celebrate," describing the website as the "central node" of deepfake abuse. Ajder said the issue of nonconsensual deepfake imagery will not go away but disbanding the largest archive of deepfake porn is "a step in the right direction." He said it makes the content less accessible and scatters the community of users, likely pushing them toward less mainstream platforms such as Telegram. "I'm sure those communities will find a home somewhere else but it won't be this home and I don't think it'll be as big and as prominent. And I think that's critical," Ajder said. Ajder said he wants to see more legislation introduced globally and an increase in public awareness to help tackle the issue of nonconsensual sexual deepfake imagery. "We're starting to see people taking it more seriously and we're starting to see the kind of societal infrastructure needed to react better than we have, but we can never be complacent with how much resource and how much vigilance we need to give," Ajder said.

Mr. Deepfakes, leading site for nonconsensual 'deepfake' porn, is...

Mr. Deepfakes, the internet's leading site for "deepfake" porn, is shutting down, the company said Monday. The site, which uses a cartoon image that seemingly resembles President Trump smiling and holding a mask as its logo, has been overrun by the nonconsensual "deepfake" videos. The dangerous form of pornography photoshops a person's face and likeness -- typically that of female celebrities -- into existing video content without the individual's permission, often using artificial intelligence to do so. "A critical service provider has terminated service permanently. Data loss has made it impossible to continue operation," a notice at the top of the site said, earlier reported by 404 Media. "We will not be relaunching. Any website claiming this is fake. This domain will eventually expire and we are not responsible for future use. This message will be removed around one week." Alternative porn sites, social media platforms and internet browsers have placed bans on the dangerous content, though they have struggled to block it entirely. But Mr. Deepfakes includes more than 55,000 of these videos, and the site receives more than 6 million visits each month, German news site Der Spiegel reported last month. It is unclear who runs Mr. Deepfakes. Der Spiegel reported that at least one person behind the site is a 36-year-old man living near Toronto, where he has been working in a hospital for years. There is currently no federal law banning deepfake porn in the US, though several states, including New York and California, have passed legislation targeting the content. Taylor Swift was famously the target of a throng of deepfakes last year, as sexually explicit, AI-generated images of the singer-songwriter spread across social media sites, like X. The explicit content form was popularized in 2017 on Reddit, when a user started sharing videos that swapped female celebrities into existing porn footage. Reddit closed the deepfake forum in 2018, but by that time, it had already grown to 90,000 users. Pornhub and other porn sites also banned the AI-generated content, but Mr. Deepfakes quickly swooped in to create an entire platform for it. Users could upload their own pornographic content to Mr. Deepfakes, or message creators to make requests. But it also became a notable resource for people making and spreading nonconsensual deepfakes, with users sharing techniques and tips on how to make the content, according to 404 Media.