Twitter bans fake porn videos with celebrity face swaps
Fake porn videos featuring face-swapped celebrities, often referred to as "deepfakes," have been banned from Twitter.
The social media platform has become the latest to ban the videos, in which celebrity women like Gal Gadot, Taylor Swift, and Maisie Williams have been face-swapped with porn performers using AI that makes it all look way too real. Motherboard first reported the ban on the porn "deepfakes," which has since been confirmed by Twitter.
Twitter told Mashable that the videos violate the company's policy, which states, "You may not post or share intimate photos or videos of someone that were produced or distributed without their consent.
"We will suspend any account we identify as the original poster of intimate media that has been produced or distributed without the subject’s consent. We will also suspend any account dedicated to posting this type of content," a Twitter spokesperson said.
Deepfakes aren't just for porn, but it's the most problematic use of the technology. (There are plenty of deepfakes featuring President Trump's face on Hillary Clinton's head.) Makers use publicly available software running machine-learning algorithms to integrate a celebrity's face into their chosen video. If the footage is of high enough quality, the result can be startlingly effective.
It's truly problematic and completely non-consensual — and a Reddit thread hosting many of these porn videos is sitting just under 90,000 subscribers.
Twitter's not the only platform to ban the videos, with Pornhub also removing deepfakes from its platform as users flag the content.
"Users have started to flag content like this, and we are taking it down as soon as we encounter the flags," Corey Price, PornHub's vice president, told Mashable. "We encourage anyone who encounters this issue to visit our content removal page so they can officially make a request."
Online chat service Discord also shut down a group that was sharing deepfakes, shortly after Business Insider reached out regarding the issue. GIF platform Gfycat also publicly denounced the clips, telling the BBC the clips are "objectionable."
Mashable has reached out to Reddit for comment.
Additional reporting by Damon Beres and Marcus Gilmer.
Shannon Connellan is Mashable's UK Editor based in London, formerly Mashable's Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives in the Creel House. A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror.
