Deepfakes are an artificial intelligence technology that can stitch the image of anyone’s face to a video or a photo that they never participated in. Although the pace at which deepfakes can be produced keeps improving, the process itself is not exactly straightforward. If you’ve already heard about this tech, then it is likely that you have come to understand it in terms of its ability to undermine democracy, spread disinformation, and create political rifts in society.
Yet, a recent report ‘Mapping the Deepfake Landscape’ by Sensity, reveals that less than 5% of deepfake videos online contain content that can impact the political sphere – like misinformation. While this fact is indeed concerning and warrants swift and decisive action, we must also shift our attention to the larger context. More than 95% of deepfake content online actually involves non-consensual deepfake pornography — where women’s faces are superimposed onto naked or sexual images. The fact that it is, unfortunately, reveals the deep misogyny and gender discrimination embedded within our society. This experience can be incredibly traumatizing; targeted women have described it as “digital sexual assault.” This also brings to light the skewed focus of the media, which has only recently begun to cover the very harmful gendered effects of deepfake pornography.
Interrogating, discussing, and countering pressing concerns such as sexualization and commodification of women’s bodies and rape culture, which undermines women’s agency and freedom, has always been relegated to feminist writers, media organizations, collectives, and NGOs. And this results in a serious lack of mainstream conversations around these concerns, in turn nourishing a patriarchal culture that treats women as secondary beings. This is why it’s imperative that the mainstream media step up and bring these conversations into the popular culture. This can only be done by shifting its gaze to the underbelly of the usage of deepfakes, one that is deeply rooted in misogyny.
The report cited above gives us more reason to dwell on the gendered threats of deepfake technology. It states that out of the top 10 pornographic websites that host deepfakes, 9 websites are monetized entirely by deepfakes.
Some of these sites had more than 134 million views on videos that targeted hundreds of female celebrities and regular women too. The consumers are predominantly male and the content is overwhelmingly of female and femme-presenting bodies.
In another separate investigation into a bot service that generates fake nudes on the Telegram app, it was found that most people who used the bot wanted to see deepfakes of “familiar girls” who they knew in real life. Over 680,000 women had their images stolen from their social media accounts or directly from private conversations, only to be manipulated and sexualized.
How do we responsibly address or grapple with these ugly statistics and the concerns they bring to the fore? We must honestly engage with what this technology exposes of us and our society and question why this technology has come to being used this way in the first place. In part, that is because the anonymity of the internet and the accessibility of new technology makes it far easier to victimize women in the digital space with impunity. Further, the roots lie in gender discrimination within our patriarchal system. Most importantly, we must bring this conversation to the mainstream.
To participate in a more nuanced conversation on deepfakes and its gendered consequences, the media, and the general public, must engage with the following pointers stated below:
- Confront the taboo around sex: A topic deemed “vulgar” in many societies can be daunting to navigate. The taboo associated with the subject might lead to people suppressing their desires, feeling guilty or ashamed for having them and are completely left in the dark when it comes to engaging in the act. This is why sex education is key. Sex is not just something that happens. It has to come out of a relationship (of any type) between two or more consenting individuals who enthusiastically engage in the act. A healthy and sex-positive culture is key to introducing changes that will reflect in online spaces.
- Understand the implications of Toxic Masculinity: The Man Box, a system that sets rigid expectations for men by dictating guidelines for what constitutes as “manly” and what does not, must be problematized. Toxic masculinity demands that “real men” be dominant personalities and always want sex. It is also a clear expectation of a “real man” to objectify women. These expectations put men in a box that can cause immense harm on their mental wellbeing and cause damage to their close ones. Feeling forced to participate in shaming and objectifying women online, by sharing their pictures with peer groups is a very real consequence of toxic masculinity and it needs to be addressed.
- Explore gender representation/ demographics within tech companies and its influence on tech-enabled harm: According to a research journal, only 25% of the total population of people working in the technology industry worldwide are women. This could seriously undermine the understanding of “the complexities these systems and their real ramifications on people.” As technology progresses and quickly becomes a part of our intimate moments, we need to explore how diversity and representation, and the inputs we gain from an inclusive workplace within tech companies, could translate into better design of technology and safer online spaces for the users.