NBC News reported that nonconsensual deepfake pornography is consistently appearing at the top of search engine results on Google and Microsoft’s Bing. This disturbing trend involves using someone’s likeness without consent, digitally manipulating images to create the illusion of them engaging in sexual acts. The report found that deepfake porn featuring the likenesses of female celebrities emerged as top results when searching terms like “deepfake,” “deepfake porn,” or “fake nudes” on both Google and Bing.
The investigation by NBC News involved combining the term “deepfakes” with 36 popular female celebrity names on the search engines. Google generated 34 results, while Bing produced 35 results for nonconsensual deepfake videos and images. Even searches for terms like “fake nudes” led to the discovery of applications and programs enabling the creation and consumption of nonconsensual deepfake pornography among the top results on both platforms.
Despite the existence of a system allowing victims to request removal of deepfake porn content, NBC News highlighted that Google and Bing don’t seem to proactively monitor their search engines for abuse. The report underscores the growing pressure on social media platforms to address the rise in nonconsensual deepfake adult content. Twitch faced scrutiny after a streamer inadvertently revealed watching sexually explicit deepfakes during a live stream, prompting policy changes on the platform.
Deepfake pornography has become a concerning epidemic, with a report titled ‘The State of Deepfakes and the Exponential Rise of Nonconsensual Synthetic Adult Content in 2023’ stating that there were nearly 280,000 clearnet synthetic, non-consensual exploitative videos in 2023. The hours of videos posted on leading deepfake nonconsensual explicit image (NCEI) websites increased from 9,300 to almost 14,000, highlighting the urgency to address this issue.
