When technology meets perversion.
The phenomenon of deep porn, derived from deepfake technology, represents a serious problem that is increasingly emerging in the online world.
Originally developed as an academic tool for special effects in cinema, deepfake was soon used for immoral purposes, with the creation of pornographic videos by superimposing the faces of celebrities or ordinary people onto the bodies of porn actresses.
Data collected by Sensity, a cybersecurity firm specializing in detecting and monitoring deepfakes, highlights the rapid growth of the phenomenon. In September 2019, approximately 96% of the approximately 15,000 deepfake videos online were pornographic, with a massive number of views. The subsequent report, from October 2020, identified over 104,000 cases of women virtually “undressed” using artificial intelligence and shared on Telegram. By 2021, these images were estimated to have increased to approximately 680,000.
Finally, according to the IT group Home Security Heroes, deepfake porn production increased 464% between 2022 and 2023, with Italy among the most affected countries after the United States, Russia, and Argentina. The victims of deepfake porn are predominantly women.
In all of this, the most alarming fact is the current ease and accessibility of artificial intelligence tools, which has led to a dizzying increase in this phenomenon, which is increasingly involving ordinary people.