FOR ALMOST A WHOLE DAY LATE LAST MONTH, deepfake pornographic images of Taylor Swift rapidly spread through X. The social media platform, formerly Twitter, was so slow to react that one image racked up 47m views before it was taken down. It was largely Swift's fans who mobilised and mass-reported the images, and there was a sense of public anger, with even the White House calling it "alarming". X eventually removed the images and blocked searches to the pop star's name.
For women who have been victims of the creation and sharing of nonconsensual deepfake pornography, the events will have been a horrible reminder of their own abuse, even if they may also hope that the spotlight will force legislators into action. But because the pictures were removed, Swift's experience is far from the norm. Most victims, even those who are famous, are less fortunate. The 17-yearold Marvel actor Xochitl Gomez spoke last month about X failing to remove pornographic deepfakes of her. "This has nothing to do with me. And yet it's on here with my face," she said.
Noelle Martin is a survivor of image-based abuse, a term that covers the sharing of nonconsensual sexual images and explicit deepfakes. She first discovered her face was being used in pornographic content 11 years ago. "Everyday women like me will not have millions of people working to protect us and to help take down the content, and we won't have the benefit of big tech companies, where this is facilitated, responding to the abuse," she says.
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