Sexually Explicit Deepfake Sites Target 100-Plus Politicians in Europe
Sexually Explicit Deepfake Sites Target 100-Plus Politicians in Europe. Skip to main contentSave this storySave this storyAlmost 150 politicians across Europe have been included on harmful deepfake pornography websites over the last few years, according to new research seen by WIRED.
What happened
An analysis of 160 deepfake websites reveals politicians in 22 countries appear on them. Nearly all of them are women. Some of the politicians, who are overwhelmingly women, have had their likeness included in explicit videos, while others have names and photos listed in disturbing database-like entries that can link to deepfake creation tools. Analysis of around 160 domains that host deepfake abuse and other nonconsensual sexual content, by researcher Benjamin Shultz, has found that at least 138 women members of parliament (MPs) from 22 European Union countries have appeared or been mentioned on the sites.
Shultz, a fellow at Agora and the lead researcher at the American Sunlight Project, compiled the details of more than 5,800 members of parliaments across Europe in July and then used custom search engines to find where they appeared across the deepfake websites. (The research does not include members of the European Parliament). Politicians from Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and France appeared on the websites the most, according to the findings, and the more senior a politician is, the more likely they were to be targeted.
Multiple researchers and lawmakers say that while politicians have been targeted with deepfakes for years, it can damage democratic practices and create chilling effects that may stop women and girls from becoming public figures. He says that while it is not surprising that politicians are being targeted in this way, the findings are helpful for officials in Europe to understand the severity of the issue.
The wider picture
Shultz, who is also researching the number of depictions of UK and US politicians, previously analyzed how many US senators and members of Congress appeared on deepfake sites in 2024. Skip to main contentSave this storySave this storyFor the best part of a decade, abusive deepfake “pornography” websites have published thousands of nonconsensual videos depicting women, including high-profile celebrities, politicians, and public figures, into sexual situations. Now, in what is likely the largest takedown of explicit deepfake websites to date, officials in New York have seized more than a dozen of the harmful sites.
The seizures, carried out under New York’s criminal procedure laws, mark perhaps one of the most significant and sweeping actions against websites hosting explicit deepfake videos since the technology first emerged at the end of 2017. Many used names that included phrases such as “sex celebrity” or promised “real deepfakes. ” They hosted false videos of some of the world’s most famous celebrities, with one saying, “various actresses’ faces are used for deepfakes. ”Videos could be several minutes in length and include fully sexually explicit scenes—often swapping the faces of celebrities or public figures into existing pornographic videos.
Through recent research, Shultz says that 56 European politicians had been mentioned or appeared on the websites, including 16 US politicians and two based in the UK. By Shultz’s calculations, it is 33 times more likely for women MPs to be targeted by deepfake ecosystems. “Deepfake porn is part of a much bigger trend of online hate and intimidation against women and female politicians,” says Suzanne Kröger, a Dutch member of parliament with the Progressive Netherlands group, who was impacted.
What has been reported
This also does reputational damage for the future if they want to fade out of politics and have another career. ”“Deepfake videos are used to intimidate politicians but also to belittle women,” says Sarah Dobbe, a Dutch Socialist Party MP, who was impacted. Both the UK and EU are planning bans on nudify services, while under the US Take It Down Act, at least two major deepfake websites publishing thousands of images and videos of celebrities have been taken offline.
After the websites were taken down, Shultz says, there has been a “significant decrease” in the number of depictions of those American politicians that appeared on the websites two years ago. The office says its investigations into who is responsible for the websites, plus those who uploaded damaging videos of victims, are ongoing. While laws against deepfakes have been slow to emerge, the US Take It Down Act increasingly allows images to be removed, with part of the law allowing law enforcement officials to take down and seize websites.
Shultz, who has been documenting deepfake abuse against political figures and had come across some of the websites during this research, says that many videos appeared to be reposts of content that had originally be shared on the MrDeepFakes website, a notorious deepfake platform that was taken offline after its creators were unmasked by reporters. “We are politicians, we have a platform and speak out,” Kröger says. “But meanwhile, there are millions of women victims of these criminal acts. ”The research, which has been published by German digital democracy think tank Agora Digitale Transformation, focuses on national members of parliament from all 27 countries in the European Union.
What happens next
The websites also include depictions of celebrities, journalists, and other public figures, he says. WIRED is not naming the websites in order to not drive further attention to the abusive images. “It is very important that if a woman or girl is victimized in this way, she can get direct support if needed, and that the content is removed quickly. ”Across the sites he monitored, Shultz categorized multiple categories of abusive content or behavior. His results include instances where MPs appeared in content that was actively being hosted by the sites, indexed results where content had been removed, and also a number of profiles and “gateways” where potentially new content could be created.
Multiple websites hosted pages that include the names of MPs, official photos, and in some cases their social media profiles or personal information. Often next to these MP biographies were links to so-called nudifier apps or the websites’ own tools that claimed to digitally undress people. “That’s just as bad as actually hosting the content. ”Since AI-created deepfakes first emerged at the end of 2017, the underlying technology to produce them has become much more accessible, and the output of the tools has become more realistic.
The report has been compiled by The Daily Waves using information reported across wired.com. Details are presented according to the information available at the time of publication and may change as authorities, organisers or other relevant parties provide updates.