The phenomenon of deepfake blackmail, or sextortion, is on the rise, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken notice. It is growing to such an extent that the agency has published a special page on its site to inform the public.
The first deepfakes generated using AI began to flourish on the web in 2017. Since then, generative artificial intelligences have become more democratized, and content creation tools such as Midjourney are ever more numerous. THE FBI claims that the month of April 2023 saw a noticeable increase in the number of deepfake blackmail victims.
To read – Deepfake: demand for pornographic montages explodes, ads appear on Facebook
Some very ill-intentioned Internet users use tools toArtificial intelligence to make pornographic montages from photos or videos published by their victim on the networks. If these bad guys are motivated by profit, they send their “creations” directly to their victims for purposes of “sextortion” or harassment. According to the FBI, they sometimes commit this offense out of sheer stupefaction. They want to get real “nudes” against the promise never to put deepfakes online.
Image hijacking and blackmail have increased
To all those who do not want to find themselves in an identical situation, the Bureau gives common sense advice: do not post pictures of yourself on the internet. This is much easier said than done, in a world where it is estimated that every day on WhatsApp, users exchange nearly 7 billion images.
The solution against deepfake blackmail and harassment could be legal. There is a law in France which stipulates that the fact of “publishing, by any means whatsoever, the montage made with the words or the image of a person without his consent is punishable byone year’s imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 euros. Regardless of the severity of the sentence, for the victims of this blackmail, the damage is already done. Once the deepfakes are online, have them taken down or preventing their dissemination is a challenge.
