Deepfakes were used for comedic purposes in the early stages of AI animation. An example of these early deepfakes would be a video of President Obama saying outlandish and outright ridiculous things that he would never say in a public forum. The video manipulated Obama’s voice by using smart detection AI to replicate his voice, allowing for a deepfake in which he would say whatever the AI programmed him to. Frequently no one can tell the difference between a fake video or a real one with these seamless platforms. Therein lies the dangers of the platform; it creates a new reality in which we can no longer trust what we see but, now more than ever, question what we know to be real or fake. 

   Unfortunately, the laws governing this new technology are not keeping up with how fast it is evolving, and there are no laws governing deep fakes. Some social media laws touch on the issues of copyright and censoring content but are not equipped to handle the issue of deep fakes. As these deepfake platforms are easily accessible and completely free/legal to use and create, it is possible for a deep fake of someone to exist without them knowing it and no legal recourse for them to fight it. “Since there are no deep fake laws or restrictions on the internet, the laws that can be used against them in court are Copyright infringement law, Defamation Legislation, and Anti-harassment laws (Lawrence, 2022).” Due to the challenges posed by the lack of laws governing deep fakes, police departments have little to no ability to help the victims of deep fakes, and many women are left to fight their abusers alone. The creators of Deep Fakes are enhancing their features in nefarious ways. They can now manipulate or create your voice using just a tiny snippet gained from a social media post or video of their victim. This evolution in manipulation poses serious security risks, as they can now create videos and images of their victims that are so real that it takes trained experts to detect them. Deep Fakes are no longer innocent videos meant for comedic purposes but rather non-consensual false videos or images made with malicious intent for the benefit of their creator/ exploiter.

   Women, who are the majority of the victims of deep fakes, always end up losing the battle against deep fakes due to the lack of regulation. With the dysregulation, many have seen ways to profit from the creation of deep fakes without fear of prosecution or consequences. Recently, two men created a deep fake of a woman they named Claudia, which they posted on the social media platform Reddit. They then lured other men into purchasing fake explicit images of Claudia, who these men thought was, in fact, a real woman. “On Reddit, Claudia had gained a following of admirers who had commented on her beauty and expressed interest in purchasing her photos. But now it’s clear that people behind this artificial entity were scamming these users… The man considered the ‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton has also warned about the developments in artificial intelligence (D’Cruze).” 

   With endless numbers of deep fakes being produced daily, tracking how many are out there is nearly impossible. The ratio of these widespread videos is extremely overwhelming to control or predict. Just in the last four years, “up to 1,000 deepfake videos were uploaded to porn sites each month, mainly featuring famous women (Harding, 2021).” These creations are particularly detrimental to women as they can easily be manipulated in a sexual or pornographic context without their consent. This causes a ripple effect in these women’s lives, with the men who create the images going unscathed. Women feel powerless and used and suffer an extreme identity crisis after witnessing themselves being depicted in such a graphic and degrading way. “One woman compared appearing in a deepfake pornography video to “digital rape” (Gieseke, 1483).” These real-life involuntary situations make women debate whether it is worth them being online and engaging in social media in the first place. Men view women differently and will most likely treat/depict them as objects rather than as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. Women have been scared to post themselves online for reasons of harassment, violent messages (ripping their clothes off, gang rape, positions they’d put you in), and fetishization (Gieseke, 1483).

   The deep fakes impact the women who are victims of them both physically and emotionally with lasting effects. Extreme anxiety is often a serious mental health crisis that the women who are victims of deep fakes find themselves gripped with. They are forced to question who they are and how the world perceives them following the abuse they endure at the release of these deep fakes. The physical implications are often a byproduct of the deep psychological scars they carry following the creation of the deep fakes. This can lead to body dysmorphia or eating disorders because the women are often dealing with the unrealistic representations of their bodies that the deepfakes project upon them.

   The false narrative impacts their professional lives as most employers today will look at your digital footprint to ensure you match their company values. “One Google search could uncover a deep fake sex tape in which the victim did not participate, permanently affecting her ability to find a job (Gieseke, 1479).” Given that, the false narrative could be used as a form of blackmail, impacting your public image and forcing women to do things they don’t want to protect their reputations. Deep Fakes affect every woman; it is a horrible fact that anyone with a social media or public profile, big or small, can fall victim to this horrific form of abuse and exploitation. With deep fakes being a sad reality of the modern age, women are asking what steps can be taken to ensure that the life they’ve built isn’t destroyed. As men are the main culprits behind the creation of these explicit videos, and usually don’t ever see any legal repercussions. “In these online spaces, men’s sense of entitlement over women’s bodies tends to go entirely unchecked…a group of men who see no harm in treating women as mere images, and view making and spreading algorithmically weaponized revenge porn as a hobby as innocent and timeless as trading baseball cards (Rini, Regina, Leah Cohen, 147)”. 

   This glaring double standard not only perpetuates a culture of impunity for those who create and disseminate deep fake porn, but it also places a burden and stigma on women who fall victim to these actions. Society will often look to the women’s past to further blame them. Examples include questioning why they’re wearing something tempting, the people they surround themselves with, and if their past jobs were in the adult business. Women further get marginalized as this society has blamed them as the source of where it started. This exacerbates the gender inequality of women in modern society, which remains stagnant. Furthermore, deepface legality and moral responsibility remain in the air for laws to be passed. In an ideal world where AI deep fakes weren’t a commonly known source, women would still be objectified in other forms. In the past, films portrayed women as more or so servants to men, cooking, cleaning, staying at home to raise their children, etc. But that was when women had little to no right to speak up for themselves. This patriarchal dynamic is rooted far back in generations and is difficult to escape from, even in the modern era. Women still have to fight for their bodies in this digital age, protesting laws and facing outside societal norms. 

   In conclusion, AI-driven deepfakes show the troubling shift in how our new technological advancements are being misused to produce harm, especially to women. As I examined in my research, this powerful and accessible tool can create harmful hyper-realistic videos and images that can be easily passed for being real. This other side of the capability of AI is disturbing and exposes the modern practices of revenge porn, harassment, and endangering women’s careers and their physical and mental being. 

   The disproportionate impact on women becomes the target of these vengeful acts. This digital form of objectification shows you the cycle in which historical patterns of gendered exploitation are intertwined with the artificial intelligence of the modern era. Women find themselves useless in the battle of being unwilling members of these crafted scenarios that cater to male sexual fantasies. This not only causes severe emotional and psychological agony but also soils the opportunities women can have and grow through their well-being/careers. There is still more to study on this topic and ways to protest for regulation laws towards the platforms of this epidemic against women. Additionally, addressing the double standard and speaking up for the changes in government legislation and media laws are vital to fighting for women’s protection.