Deepfakes: Reddit bans AI-generated fake celebrity porn

Reddit has joined a growing number of social networks in banning fake celebrity pornography generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

The ban includes content created and shared by members of a subreddit chat forum set up by a user known as deepfakes. The group used AI-powered software to make masks of celebrities and place them onto the bodies of porn performers in adult videos.

Celebrities whose likenesses have been used include Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot, Scarlett Johansson and Star Wars lead Daisy Ridley.

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The practice was “brought to the wider public’s attention in December” through the deepfakes subreddit, which amassed more than 91,000 subscribers before it was banned, says BBC News.

According to the news site, Reddit had “been under growing pressure to act” after websites including Twitter, Gfycat and Pornhub introduced their own bans on mocked-up celebrity porn over the past week.

Visitors to the deepfakes subreddit are now met by a message saying the page violates the chat forum’s content policy, as it classes the shared material as “involuntary pornography”.

The forum told its users that it will be relying on “first-party reports” as a means to identify pornographic images created without the consent of those in them, although it will “take context into account” in each instance, The Verge reports.

According to Forbes, “not everything on the [deepfakes] subreddit was porn”, with some members simply “exploring” the technology.

For instance, the news website says, there were a number of videos where members had added Nicolas Cage to movies he hadn’t starred in by using AI software to place his face on the body of the original performer.