Have you ever worried that an explicit photo of you could be used against you without your knowledge or consent? For many people, that fear is already a reality. Most people have heard of revenge porn, usually from the horror stories of ex-partners leaking private photos or videos have become an unfortunate staple of the news cycle. But with the rise of AI, this problem is getting a whole lot messier and a whole lot more personal. You don't even need to have taken an explicit photo for one to exist of you. That’s where deepfake porn comes in.
What is Deepfake Porn?
To understand deepfake porn, you first need to understand image-based sexual abuse.
Image-based sexual abuse is any act involving sexualized or sexually explicit materials that violates someone's consent–whether that means creating it, stealing it, manipulating it, threatening to share it, or actually sharing it, as well as any use of such materials for sexual exploitation.
Image-based sexual abuse can include things like. . .
Revenge porn: posting or sending explicit images of someone after they've asked you not to, or without ever having their permission.
"Down blousing" or "upskirting" refers to using a camera to capture intimate images of someone who has no idea they're being recorded
Pressuring someone to share or generate sexually explicit content of themself
And, you guessed it, deepfake porn.
Deepfake porn is when someone hijacks another person's identity by taking their real images and using them to produce fake pornographic or sexualized content. This can look like. . .
Pulling someone's face from their social media and dropping it onto explicit content
Running someone's photos through AI tools to fabricate what they look like without clothes
Generating completely made-up explicit scenarios starring a real person's likeness
Creating fake explicit videos that mimic someone's voice, appearance, and mannerisms
Spreading this content online or weaponizing it for harassment, blackmail, or coercion
AI Tools & the Deepfake PORN Problem
One of the biggest contributors to the rise of deepfake porn is Grok, an AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk's company xAI. Grok has drawn widespread criticism for its relatively permissive content filters, which make it easier than most AI tools to generate explicit or sexualized imagery of real people (and children!). In response, several countries have moved to restrict or ban the chatbot altogether, and advocacy groups have called on xAI to address the issue directly.
This raises some big, uncomfortable questions:
Who is responsible: the AI, the person using it to make deepfake porn, both?
What does meaningful legislation actually look like to help mitigate and regulate this problem?
How do we educate people about ethical AI use while protecting those most at risk?
Honestly, I don't have clean answers to any of these. But as a sexual violence researcher, what I do know is that this emerging form of image-based sexual abuse isn't going anywhere. In a lot of ways, this feels similar to earlier moments of technological growing pains, like when Snapchat was hacked and thousands of nude were leaked, or when social media outpaced privacy laws.
Society had to catch up then, and we're in that same uncomfortable in-between period now. Until the law catches up, my strongest recommendation is to know what rights you do have already and what is in progress to help protect you; because unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that can happen to anyone.
Recent Findings and News on Deepfake Porn
This has become a serious and fast-moving problem over the last few years, and the research community is already responding. Here are a few pieces I would recommend checking out:
A qualitative analysis of Reddit posts on the topic found that victims and bystanders were predominantly women. While Reddit offered some community support and dialogue about the larger, moral issue, it also revealed troubling patterns of minimization of the harm deepfake porn can cause and instead a fixation on the technology itself.
Many academics are sounding the alarm on nonconsensual AI-generated porn and pushing for meaningful legislative protections. This piece from Seattle University's law journal is a particularly strong example of that growing call to action.
Staying up to date on the news is just as important as the research, especially on an issue this much in flux. Here are some recent headlines that I think are worth reading:
"Nudify" apps and federal law: AI-powered "nudify" apps have been documented in schools across at least 28 countries and 90 schools. One researcher estimated as many as 1.2 million children were victimized by sexual deepfakes in just the past year. The newly enacted Take It Down Act responds to this by criminalizing the posting of AI deepfakes of minors and requiring platforms to remove reported content within 48 hours.
A landmark conviction in Australia: William Hamish Yeates, 19, became the first person charged under a new national law criminalizing the manipulation of sexual images, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison.
New U.S. state laws taking effect: This source briefly describes the wave of state-level legislation that took effect in January 2026, covering social media and AI regulations. Several states are zeroing in on protecting minors specifically, with measures ranging from special account restrictions to mandatory cancellations for underage users.
Frequently Asked Questions About Deepfake Porn
What’s the Difference Between Deepfake Porn and Revenge Porn?
Revenge porn involves the non-consensual sharing of real, explicit images or videos, usually by a former partner. Deepfake porn takes it a step further: the explicit content itself is fabricated using AI, meaning the person never had to take or share an explicit image for one to exist of them. Both are forms of image-based sexual abuse, but deepfake porn removes the requirement that any real explicit image ever existed in the first place.
What is "sextortion"?
Sextortion is the use of sexual images to blackmail someone, typically to extort more explicit material, money, sexual acts, or to coerce someone into staying in a relationship. It often overlaps with deepfake porn–someone may threaten to create or distribute fake explicit images unless their demands are met.
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Written by Jesse John, B.S.
Jesse is a clinical psychology doctoral student at Rowan University in New Jersey. Their research focuses on sexual decision-making, sexual violence, and relationship experiences. The author identifies as a Queer, neurodiverse, white, non-binary person, which informs the way they write and see the world!
