Amid Rashmika Mandanna Controversy, Staggering Scale Of Deepfake Videos

A deepfake video of actor Rashmika Mandanna shocked the film fraternity and social media users, who demanded strong legal action against the perpetrators. These digitally altered videos, that feature hundreds of women without their consent, are attracting millions of visitors on websites, some of which even appear in Google search results. Most of these videos and photos are used for pornographic purposes. They are created by artificial intelligence (AI), which has made significant progress in recent years, and machine learning that make it easier to swap faces of people.

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Due to the AI boom, the creation on non-consensual deepfakes has surged, with the number of such videos increasing manifold since 2019. According to independent analyst Genevieve Oh, nearly 150,000 videos, which have received 3.8 billion views in total, appeared across 30 sites so far this year. The analysis has been cited by outlets like Bloomberg, The Guardian and NBC News.

Some of the websites offer resources, such as grafting faces of celebrities like Emma Watson or Taylor Swift onto the bodies of porn performers, which make creation of deepfake videos easier. Others offer paying clients the opportunity to manipulate the photos and videos of women they know, such as classmates or colleagues.

A major controversy rocked the online gaming community in January when a popular streamer Brandon Ewing, who goes by the username "Atrioc", displayed deepfake pornography of several popular women streamers in one of his online broadcasts. He later admitted to having paid for AI-powered tool to create videos of the women who were his colleagues and friends, after seeing an ad similar to those that appeared on Meta and Apple platforms.

Ms Oh told NBC News that after Ewing's apology, web traffic to the top deepfake porn sites exploded. Her research also found that the number of such videos has nearly doubled every year since 2018.

Meanwhile, Ms Mandanna has thanked fellow actor Amitabh Bachchan and others who called for legal action against her deepfake video that went viral. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Ms Mandanna said it is "extremely scary" how technology is being misused.