A Twitch streamer has opened up about the horrifying discovery that she'd been the victim of deepfake porn.
As technology grows more advanced, so too has the disturbing issue of deepfake porn, which sees perpetrators use artificial intelligence to create adult films and images featuring the faces of non-consenting people.
Mostly women have been targeted in this worrying trend, which has been nearly doubling every year since 2018, according to research by broadcasting analyst Genevieve Oh.
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Beyond pornography, there have also been misinformation campaigns, one of which shows US President Joe Biden falling asleep in an interview.
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Even though it never actually happened, some people to this day believe otherwise.
Although lawmakers worldwide are beginning to address deepfake media, for some people it's too late.
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Twitch star Sweet Anita spoke with The Sun about the issue, having become aware of videos made of her after another streamer Atrioc was exposed for looking at a deepfake site earlier this year.
The site in question sells access to x-rated deepfake images and videos, with some of the media being of female Twitch streamers.
Sweet Anita, from East Anglia, told the outlet: "You could deepfake anyone. Anyone from any walk of life could be targeted by this and it feels like people don't give a s***.
"I have never made a single drop of sexual content in my life but now they just assume that I have and I must want this.
"It’s not easy to differentiate this from reality. If people see this video in 10 or 20 years' time, no one will know whether I was a sex worker or this was a deepfake.
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"It could potentially get you fired from jobs in the future if people think you’ve done sex work and it affects your security, how people treat you and you are stigmatised."
She continued: "This will impact my life in a similar way to revenge porn, so I’m just frustrated, tired, and numb.
"This was nonconsensual and the impacts are permanent."
Though the issue of deepfake porn is relatively new, the non-consensual sexualisation of women online is not.
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"Before deepfakes, people had been photoshopping still images to have my face on porn," the streamer continued.
"People have amassed huge collections of clips of me getting up and walking away from the camera during live streams to look at my body, even though it’s clothed.
"There are people who make whole Reddit forums just to roleplay as me, where they are like, 'I’m going to pretend to be Sweet Anita, do you want to do spicy DMs with me?'
"There have been whole communities of thousands who get together to sexualise me – I did not consent to any of it.
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"It’s one extra thing in an endless and exhaustive list that female content creators have to take on that are traumatising, take thousands of pounds to address and require therapy to deal with."
Sweet Anita isn't the only one speaking out, with Twitch star QTCinderella sharing a tearful clip after the Atrioc scandal in which she said she'd sue the person responsible.
During a stream on 30 January, she said: "To the person that made that website, I’m going to f***ing sue you.
"I promise you. With every part of my soul, I’m going to f***ing sue you. That’s all I have to say."
Topics: World News, Crime, Technology, Twitch