Jacob Elordiprotagonist in the series Euphoria and the movie Saltburn, has recently been the victim of a fake sex video circulating on social media. Since Monday night, posts on deepfake explicit, non-consensual, in which the actor’s face has been digitally superimposed on another person’s body.
According to reports, in the video a man can be seen masturbating and Elordi’s face has been added with artificial intelligence. Posts in which the clip was attached quickly racked up more than three million views, according to a report from NBC News. Platform X removed the original post, noting that it “violated anti-abuse rules.”
He deepfake not only involves Elordi, but also the original creator of the content, who was a minor when the images were recorded.
A user of OnlyFans, identified on X as @mentallyillgus, claimed to be the person in the video and revealed that he was only 17 years old when it was recorded. “Deepfakes are becoming disturbing,” he wrote on social media after recognizing his video.
The young man, currently 19 years old and resident of Brazil, commented on several of the posts on X and requested that the manipulated video be deleted.
The deepfakes They are videos intervened with artificial intelligence to place the face of one person on the body of another, with a high level of realism. Although it has legitimate applications in the entertainment industry and in research, its use to create non-consensual pornographic videos leads to serious ethical and legal concerns.
Elordi’s case is not isolated. In recent years, there has been an increase in the distribution of sexual deepfakes without the authorization of their protagonists.
Public figures such as Taylor Swift and Megan Thee Stallion They have also been victims of this type of digital manipulation that takes advantage of their appearance. In January, explicit images of Taylor Swift racked up more than 27 million views on x before being eliminated.
But along with the impact on celebrities, this invasive practice has also affected numerous content creators on platforms such as TikTok, and puts adolescents at risk. Technology specialists have not hesitated to condemn the disturbing montages such as a form of sexual assault.
Can anything be done to stop the distribution of unauthorized deepfakes? NBCNews note that, from April 2023, x has implemented a policy against publishing “synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that could mislead or confuse people and cause harm.”
But while content that “sexualizes a person without their consent” has been banned, the effectiveness of these policies has been questioned, as manipulated clips persist on the microblogging network.
An article from Vox alerts that, in 2019, a cybersecurity firm detected that 96% of videos deepfake that circulate on the Internet are pornographic and the vast majority of them involve women.
In the DeepTrace firm’s report, a Boston professor explained why it is vital to control this type of activity: “Explicit videos deepfake “They tell affected people that their bodies do not belong to them, they make it difficult for them to remain on the Internet, and they also hinder getting or keeping a job and feeling safe.”
Legislation in the United States has also attempted to address this problem, the news outlet states. Laws have been developed, both at the federal and state levels, to combat the non-consensual use of deepfakes; although the measures still seem to be insufficient.
