Speaking with The Washington Post, actress, Scarlett Johansson, has slammed deepfakes, but admits fighting the issue legally is next to impossible, thanks largely to the differing laws of each country.
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The term deepfake is used to describe AI generated porn in which someone’s face is pasted onto another person’s body in a way that looks eerily lifelike. Johansson is, unfortunately, very familiar with the concept, as she’s found countless videos of her face on the bodies of porn actors all over the internet.
To give you an idea of how convincing the technology has become, have a look at the video below in which Nicholas Cage‘s face is inserted into various movies.
Sure, it’s not absolutely flawless, but it’s pretty fucking close. In the interview, Johansson says that “it’s a useless pursuit, legally, mostly because the internet is a vast wormhole of darkness that eats itself”.
“There are far more disturbing things on the dark web than this, sadly. I think it’s up to an individual to fight for their own right to their image, claim damages, etc.”
She goes on to explain that even you can have the footage removed or blocked in your own country, there’s little that can be done about accessing it from somewhere else, which can be achieved by anyone with a VPN.
Also, every country has their own legalese regarding the right to your own image, so while you may be able to take down sites in the U.S. that are using your face, the same rules might not apply in Germany. Even if you copyright pictures with your image that belong to you, the same copyright laws don’t apply overseas. I have sadly been down this road many, many times.
The fact is that trying to protect yourself from the internet and its depravity is basically a lost cause, for the most part.
Vulnerable people like women, children and seniors must take extra care to protect their identities and personal content. That will never change no matter how strict Google makes their policies.
It’s also scarily easy to download the free software used to create the videos, making the issue fairly widespread and difficult to curb simply by virtue of the internet being a mostly lawless hellhole. Even if you have the means to protect yourself online, there’s always a way around it.
Obviously, if a person has more resources, they may employ various forces to build a bigger wall around their digital identity. But nothing can stop someone from cutting and pasting my image or anyone else’s onto a different body and making it look as eerily realistic as desired. There are basically no rules on the internet because it is an abyss that remains virtually lawless, withstanding US policies which, again, only apply here.
It’s not the first time the celebrity has struggled with her images on the internet, either. In 2011, a hacker got a hold of some of her nude photos and posted them, along with some other celebrities’ pics. The hacker was sentenced to 10 years prison in 2012.
You can read the entirety of her thoughts here if you’re keen.
