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The Switch

Fake-porn videos are being weaponized to harass and humiliate women: ‘Everybody is a potential target’

‘Deepfake’ creators are making disturbingly realistic, computer-generated videos with photos taken from the Web, and ordinary women are suffering the damage

By
December 30, 2018 at 10:00 a.m. EST
A new technology is being used to put women’s faces on porn stars’ bodies. (Sarah Hashemi/The Washington Post)

The video showed the woman in a pink off-the-shoulder top, sitting on a bed, smiling a convincing smile.

It was her face. But it had been seamlessly grafted, without her knowledge or consent, onto someone else’s body: a young pornography actress, just beginning to disrobe for the start of a graphic sex scene. A crowd of unknown users had been passing it around online.