Sexually Explicit Deepfake Sites Target 100-Plus Politicians in Europe
An analysis of over 160 deepfake pornography websites found that politicians from 22 European countries appear on them as targets, with nearly all of the affected individuals being women.
Why this matters: This is targeted harassment dressed up as a technology problem. Female politicians are being depicted in explicit material they never consented to, and the goal is obvious: make public life feel dangerous and degrading enough that fewer women stay in it. That is a direct attack on political representation, not just on individual people. Europe has moved faster than most on regulating nonconsensual intimate images, but laws mean little if platforms hosting this content face no real consequences. The accountability question is not complicated. Someone runs these sites. Someone profits from them.
Who should care: General readers · AI governance · Policy
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