Deepfakes, which are predominantly being used to produce porn, are thriving because the stigma of porn has made it difficult for sex workers to protect their IP
But revenge porn and IP theft are the more pressing threats — OVER THE PAST three years, celebrities have been appearing across social media in improbable scenarios. Tweets: @thewalrus , @bryonycole , @thewalrus , @internetmaggie , @internetmaggie , @thewalrus , @thewalrus , and @sesmith Tweets: @thewalrus : Deepfakes are a powerful new genre of digital media, and they represent a creative practice with huge potential. But they also pose a threat to consent, bodily autonomy, and intellectual property. https://thewalrus.ca/... Bryony Cole / @bryonycole : Continuing to frame the technology entirely by what we anticipate-political interference-detracts from our ability to engage w the reality of how deepfakes are being harnessed: to harm women - by @internetmaggie for @thewalrus https://thewalrus.ca/... #sextech @thewalrus : In 2017, deepfakes began circulating on message boards like Reddit as altered videos from anonymous users; the term is a portmanteau of “deep learning”—the process used to train an algorithm to doctor a scene—and “fake.” More here: https://thewalrus.ca/... 2/5 https://twitter.com/... @internetmaggie : https://twitter.com/... @internetmaggie : Despite the hype, Deepfakes don't target politics, but porn. Rather than hurting powerful politicians, they target most vulnerable workers in our midst, women and porn performers. Read my new piece in @thewalrus here: https://twitter.com/... @thewalrus : Today, anyone can make their own deepfakes using free software like FakeApp or Faceswap. Reporting on deepfakes has emphasized their potential for disinformation. But, writes @internetmaggie, this panic ignores the harm they currently cause. Read on: https://thewalrus.ca/... 3/5 @thewalrus : Recently, celebrities including Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage have been captured in deepfakes—startlingly realistic videos created using artificial intelligence. @internetmaggie looks at the truth about deepfakes: https://thewalrus.ca/... S. E. Smith / @sesmith : I've read a lot of coverage of deepfakes and porn. I haven't read a lot that talks about how harmful this is for porn performers and their IP. https://thewalrus.ca/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This piece lands mid-arc in a documented escalation: WIRED had already reported deepfake porn running rampant on mainstream porn sites back in 2020, and by May 2023 a Bloomberg-cited study counted roughly 150K nonconsensual videos with 3.8B views across 30 sites — a ninefold rise since 2019, aided by services from big tech companies. The Walrus's argument reframes that growth: the harm isn't just consent violation but theft, because stigma around porn has left performers without usable IP defenses for their own likeness.
That framing explains why the legal response has lagged the technology. State-level bans on sharing nonconsensual deepfake porn exist — Virginia and California among them — but no federal law covers the gap, and enforcement-challenged hosts like MrDeepFakes, which bellingcat found operating with obscure ownership and close to 650K members, persist precisely because victims have weak legal levers to pull.
First-order effects
- Sex workers and performers are being hit twice at once: their faces are swapped into nonconsensual content and their original work is copied without license, and stigma-driven payment and platform policies leave them fewer takedown and litigation options than other creators would have.
Second-order effects
- The patchwork of state laws like Virginia's and California's puts pressure on Congress for a federal framework, while platforms and host sites face growing scrutiny over how they police synthetic sexual content.
Third-order effects
- If likeness-theft keeps outpacing protection, the likely structural outcome is synthetic-likeness rights being formalized as an IP category — with the adult industry, long treated as a low-priority victim class, serving as the stress test for whether those rights are enforceable against anonymously owned sites.
The trend: Nonconsensual deepfake porn is scaling far faster than the legal and platform protections meant to contain it, making the adult industry the proving ground for synthetic-likeness rights.