Pornhub and Twitter ban AI-generated 'deepfakes' videos that put female celebrities' faces on adult actresses' bodies

Backlash against the clips is gathering pace

The streaming site has banned 'deepfakes' videos (Shutterstock)

Pornhub has banned so-called “deepfakes” videos that employ machine learning to superimpose people’s faces on adult actors’ bodies.

The streaming site called the fake porn videos, which often feature female celebrities, “non-consensual” and said it would remove the clips as soon as users alerted it to them.

Twitter has also said it will not tolerate deepfake videos, adding it would suspend accounts found to be the original posters of “intimate media” that had been created without their subject’s consent, Motherboard reported.

Reddit said users were prohibited from posting images or videos of “any person in a state of nudity or engaged in any act of sexual conduct” without their permission, “including depictions that have been faked”.

Pornhub vice president Corey Price said: “Users have started to flag content like this and we are taking it down as soon as we encounter the flags. We encourage anyone who encounters this issue to visit our content removal page so they can officially make a request.

“Content that is flagged on Pornhub that directly violates our terms of service is removed as soon as we are made aware of it. This includes non-consensual content.

“To further ensure the safety of all our fans, we officially took a hard stance against revenge porn, which we believe is a form of sexual assault, and introduced a submission form for the easy removal of non-consensual content.”

The backlash against deepfake videos has been gathering pace amid concern about their potential for exploitation in revenge porn.

Last week Gfycat, the San Francisco tech company that has hosted many of the videos, said the posts were “objectionable” and that it would remove them from the internet.

Deepfakes are created using a program called FakeApp, which gives users access to artificial intelligence routines and allows them to swap faces in a clip.

Reports suggested actresses Emma Watson, Jennifer Lawrence and Sophie Turner, and singer Ariana Grande, had been targeted by users taking images of their faces and feeding them into the app.

The tool has also been used for comedic purposes – grafting Donald Trump’s face on to the Austin Powers villain Dr Evil, or Nicolas Cage’s famously expressive features onto Yoda, The Rock and others.