Dutch victims overjoyed by take down of deepfake porn site

After persistent pressure in the Netherlands and England, MrDeepFakes, the largest deepfake porn site, has gone offline worldwide. The site contained fake porn videos of at least 70 Dutch parliamentarians and celebrities. Several of them told AD that they are overjoyed.

Deepfake porn involves editing the heads of women onto existing pornographic footage using artificial intelligence. At least 20 Dutch MPs and celebrities, including Olcay Gulsen and Hélène Hendriks, have pressed charges against the platform in the Netherlands. The Public Prosecution Service (OM) is investigating.

MrDeepFakes going dark is a direct result of the reports filed in the Netherlands and other countries, Robert Hoving of privacy expertise center OffLimits told the newspaper.

According to AD, the gang behind MrDeepFakes, consisting of a Canadian porn baron and several Russian cybercriminals, had already blacklisted visitors from the Netherlands and England and instructed users of the platforms not to “talk to journalists and don’t make videos of Dutch princesses.” The two countries have advanced legislation against this type of pornography and have paid a lot of media attention to the platform. In the Netherlands, for example, creating and distributing a deepfake is considered revenge porn, with a maximum prison sentence of two years.

With the takedown of MrDeepFakes, approximately 55,000 deepfake porn videos are disappearing. Over 6 million people visited the site per month, including 200,000 from the Netherlands. A large part of the Dutch images had already been removed after several enforcement requests. A few dozen remained when the site went dark.

Olcay Gulsen, whose face was used in deepfake porn on the site, called the takedown a breakthrough. “Completely against my expectations, the report has led to the definitive removal of pornographic deepfakes,” she told AD. BBB leader Caroline van der Plas, another victim, told the newspaper that she is “very happy” and hopes that the “perpetrators do not escape their punishment.”