Mar 1, 2024

“Moral Bankruptcy” : Prof. Hany Farid Reflects on Deepfake Pornography

From The Guardian

Tech bros need to realise deepfake porn ruins lives – and the law has to catch up

By Luba Kassova

Imagine finding that someone has taken a picture of you from the internet and superimposed it on a sexually explicit image available online. Or that a video appears showing you having sex with someone you have never met.

Imagine worrying that your children, partner, parents or colleagues might see this and believe it is really you. And that your frantic attempts to take it off social media keep failing, and the fake “you” keeps reappearing and multiplying. Imagine realising that these images could remain online for ever and discovering that no laws exist to prosecute the people who created it...

However, according to Prof Hany Farid, a forensics specialist in digital images at the University of California, Berkeley, all of those parties indirectly making money from deepfake abuse of women are unlikely to act. Their “moral bankruptcy” will mean they continue to turn a blind eye to the practice in the name of profits unless forced to do otherwise, he says...

Read more...

Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley.

Last updated: March 4, 2024