Man sentenced to community service for making deepfake porn of TV host Welmoed Sijtsma

The court in Amsterdam sentenced on Thursday a 39-year-old man from Amersfoort to a conditional community service of 180 hours for creating and sharing online a deepfake porn video of TV presenter and journalist Welmoed Sijtsma.

O.K. used footage of the TV presenter to create a pornographic video using deepfake technology. He superimposed Sijtsma's face onto the body of a porn actress engaged in a sexual act with a man and then posted the video on a website dedicated to such content. He was arrested in November 2022 and later confessed to creating and distributing the video.

The court described the video as "shocking and tasteless," severely infringing upon the "sexual autonomy and sexual privacy" of the victim.

Sijtsma became aware of the fake porn video circulating about her online last year. She decided to make a four-part docuseries about it for broadcaster WNL titled "Welmoed and the Sex Fakes" on NPO3, in which she sought the person behind the video. With the help of an IT investigator, she identified K.

The Public Prosecution Service demanded a 120-hour community service and a two-month conditional prison sentence. The court initially considered a substantial prison sentence appropriate but took into account K.'s personal circumstances. He had already voluntarily started behavioral treatment.

The man's lawyer argued for his acquittal or dismissal of charges, claiming that deepfake is not criminalized under Article 139h of the Criminal Code, which covers, for example, revenge porn.

The court disagreed: deepfake images can fall under this article, "provided that the imagery in question appears so real at first glance that it is not clear that the images have been manipulated." It was outlined that it may be clear to the depicted person that the images are not real, but this may not "necessarily" be the case for the general public.