The Biggest Deepfake Porn Website Is Now Blocked in the UK

Dragxito@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 312 points –
wired.com
77

Streisand Effect will kick in soon. I don’t even know any deep fake porn sites.

I came here to post this. One should be careful because the action itself draws attention.

Can't just ignore it either. And it's a catch 22, if you don't talk about it people assume it isn't a problem. But if you do, it brings more shitty people to the sites and copycat sites. Also, unfortunately most female public figures have already been targeted by these sites.

One of the issues here is that there is likely considerable overlap between people who are competent enough to circumvent the block with a VPN or the like, and people who'd be seeking out AI deepfake porn, just because the latter likely appeals to socially outcast (and unfortunately therefore often more tech savvy) people.

I'm in the UK and glad this has been blocked but I also absolutely don't trust the weird internet puritanism of the UK government, for at least the time I've been following politics as a you g teenager, there have been many attempts to block various aspects of porn on the internet, normally from a point of protecting children but the whole thing has always reeked of the government testing public outcry on blocking parts of the internet to later re-attempt to censor on their interests.

First line of the article:

Two of the biggest deepfake pornography websites have now started blocking people trying to access them from the United Kingdom.

This isn't (yet) the UK blocking access to them as part of a Great Firewall of Britain thing. This is the sites themselves blocking visitors from the UK, the same as porn sites for various US states.

As with porn sites, it'll be using the geoIP tag of your IP address, which is notoriously unreliable, especially near geopolitical boundaries.

Using a VPN or even a third-party (rather than your ISP's) DNS server will often get around them. However, doing so will eventually probably get you in trouble.

Sadly being an island, the unreliability near border boundaries isn't an issue, except for northern Ireland

What is this 12ft proxy?

A few security vendors are flagging it as a malicious site... I would be wary about clicking this link or using this site: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/6cbf35e9b2160be2aa59844f900f911113b7fe724b1d941853a4b8253586acfc

What are the chances that the ones marking as malicious are owned by media conglomerates that are losing money because of the service 12ft supplies?

Website scanning for malware or other undesirable content is extremely unreliable and prone to false positives. None of the three vendors are very well known (except for a few other reports of false positives). If anything that's a pretty low hitrate on virustotal all things considered. Don't put too much stock in the heuristics of companies whose business model revolves around scaring their customers and exploiting computer illiteracy.

3/92 on virus total is a great result. The only scanners reporting a problem are the ones that are always wrong.

For scanning files, maybe.
The vast majority of websites I go to have 0 detections.
Occassionally, there are some with 1 detection.
3 looks suspicious to me based on my experience, but I'm leaving that for everyone else to decide.

At least this way everyone can make their own informed decision about visiting some random proxy site that they'd never heard of before.

ITT: Assholes asking "ironically" for deepfakes.

Yeah I get the sunny references, but the reason you are all thinking the same thing is because y'all acting like Mac. Who to be clear, was a giant PoS for asking the question. It should be a big ass red flag when you emulate the gang.

Making a joke referencing a character on a TV show doesn't make you the same as that character.

I sometimes say "one million dollars" then raise my pinkie to my mouth, but that doesn't mean I want to mass genocide planet earth like Doctor Evil lol

Most of the time, a joke is just a joke.

Do you not think some of the people asking actually want to know?

Well yeah I'm sure some do. Some out of genuine curiosity and some because their ethics go out the window when blood rushes to their dick.

But I'm still not going to jump to the conclusion that people are perverted creeps just because they're making a common pop culture reference.

On the topic of IASIP, I frequently reference the "because of the implication" line. I do so because I find it funny to reference shows I like. Not because I want to buy a boat and coerce women into having sex with me under the perceived threat of violence.

Uh huh.

But what's the joke? Why is it funny? That people are asking for the link? The reason that so many people are making this joke is because they read the headline and wanted to know which site. So they came to the comments, and quoted Mac because his scene is the most well known reference to what they were doing. This isn't like Dr. Evil, Mac heard about revenge porn and wanted to see, and bunch of dorks heard about deepfakes and "joke" about wanting to see.

Are you genuinely new to people referencing TV shows/films they like?

and quoted Mac because his scene is the most well known reference to what they were doing

Or they just referenced a joke on a TV show, seeing that this situation is similar. People make jokes. You don't need to concoct a conspiracy theory that all the jokers aren't actually joking and they're really perverted creeps.

I often reference Sunny's "because of the implication" scene (if you don't know of it I'm sure it's on YouTube). Believe it or not, I do so because I like referencing TV shows I watch, not because I want to trick women into having sex with me on a boat under the perceived threat of violence/murder.

I don't appreciate you making rather awful accusations of people (that they're sex pests), completely baselessly, because they quoted a damn TV show. You can't read minds, you've just jumped to the most evil possible interpretation of what others are doing, rather than the most likely: that they're making a joke.

Maybe you enjoy acting puritanical and holier-than-thou. Or maybe you're just naturally quite cynical and you're assuming the worst in people. Either way it's not very kind.

Maybe you enjoy acting puritanical and holier-than-thou

Honestly, right back at yeah. Calling me a prude is just your way of playing dumb about the situation. Your "holier than thou" is "understanding a joke more than thou".

That they're making a joke

The joke is that their asking. "Because of the implication" and "one million dollars" are over the top because you're not holding the world ransom and you aren't planning to pressure someone into sex. You use those in situation where it doesn't apply and that's the humor.

But clicking a link is absolutely within the realm of possibility. Like, read the damn article. Lots of people were using the site/app, people here were asking for the same reason. Whitewashing it through pop culture doesn't change that they are literally asking for the link.

It's naive to think that anonymous users on lemmy would somehow never deep fake, nor pursue the content. My comment was to shame those tempted to do so, if you wish to think me unkind for that, so be it.

I think you really need to understand that it's a joke.

As I've said so many times, it's not a joke if you are literally asking. If you are in a boat and tell your GF that she shouldn't say no to you because of the implication, then that's not a joke. And if you come to a thread about banned deep fake sites and ask for the link it's not a joke.Even Dennis himself hides behind this logic that "obviously she is in no danger", but that ignores the real threats women have to live with every day. Women don't get to assume that every implication rape threat is a joke because the risk is too great, it always going to be real to the subject without power.

You already admitted in a different comment that some of the people here were looking for a link. So why exactly are you so upset at me? Is your right to assume it'd always a joke out ranked by my concern at yet another way for women to be sexually harassed? Before it was simply any woman who posted nudes online had to know it would be online forever. But now any woman who has ever posted, or hell even went outside where a camera was now runs the risk of her nudes being posted?

But I guess you feeling hurt over "jokes" is the real problem?!? Like seriously, let it tf go. The lame jokes don't need to be defended and I'm not the jolly joy villian you are making me out to be.

Jesus Christ you're even complaining about the joke being performed by an actor in a TV show now. You need help.

😂

Okay, now you are just taking the piss. The show is satire about horrible people doing horrible things. Absolutely everything the gang does should be criticized. I'm pointing at Dennis, not Glen.

Look, I'm done here and idgaf what you think, but I'll leave you with an idea. Go to a women in your life you trust, mom, GF, sister or whoever and tell them some lady on the internet was upset about deepfakes and you told her it was just a joke.

Exactly. The show is satire and you're getting upset at characters. They aren't real.

Women is plural. "A women" would be "a woman".

Lmao, nice attempt at a strawman, I never said deepfakes are just a joke. I said referencing a joke from a satirical TV show is a joke. Evidently that concept is proving too difficult for you.

Goodbye. I hope you learn to take a joke someday. What a grey and joyless life you must have.

Explain it however you like "some lady on the internet can't take a joke", or give her a link to this thread. Whatever, idc.

But you aren't going to, we both know that.

I'm not going to what?

Yeah. You can't take a joke at all. You're even complaining about TV characters being immoral. It's TV ffs. It's not real.

Mac is not a real person. It is an actor playing a role. He is a work of fiction.

What about those of us who think deep fakes are no different than someone drawing a bad fan porno fiction?

I'd point you to the space episode of Black Mirror.

Personally, don't know. I'm pretty liberal and I'd be flattered if someone had deep fake nudes of me.

But I understand the counter argument.

It's a weird moral conundrum.

The scale and ease of use is the real problem. Anyone who would draw pictures of women they know naked to jerk off to is obviously a creep. But that's a creep who had to spend years of their lives practicing to draw realistic bodies. Not literally any person who happens to have a folder full of their Facebook friends.

Like roll the clock back and pretend this is about the dangers of cars running people over. When there is only a couple cars out there it's easy to say "But what about the horses that run people over", but fast forward to today and death by auto wildly outranks death by horse. Horses and car deaths are still a problem, but citing horses as to why car deaths aren't so bad is ludicrous, disengenerous and asinine

Two things can be a problem, but easily accessible deep faking by anyone with a boner and a spare minute is not the same to someone spending hours over a suacy oil painting.

I would recommend to get some empathy, not bad in general.

To me it’s not about empathy, it’s about doing what you want as long as your not harming anyone.

And I believe if I draw some picture of (let’s say you) and keep it to myself (or with those who consented to seeing said drawing), there is nothing wrong with that.

I doubt you would agree though.

Edit: for future readers, please note that responding to a logic argument with saying “what about empathy”, is actually the logical fallacy “appeal to emotion”.

Downvote away if you like.

And I believe if I draw some picture of (let’s say you) and keep it to myself (or with those who consented to seeing said drawing), there is nothing wrong with that.

Sure. But that's not what happens with deepfake porn sites? They are public.

Sure. But that's not what happens with deepfake porn sites? They are public.

Wouldn’t a content warning take care of that? As long as every user visiting knows they are consenting to see “bad porn drawings”, it’s still the situation I originally described.

Sure, what ever helps you masturbate. But again - you can also have empathy with people who it has an effect on, listen to why and how and masturbate to all the other porn out there. But you wont since you lack basic empathy or maybe the whole hurting people is what gets you off in the first place. Not judging.

But you wont since you lack basic empathy

Don’t know where I claimed this or implied this.

Idk how you could possibly know or judge that someone has or doesn’t have empathy for other human beings while discussing personal freedoms that don’t affect others.

I guess strawman is the only way to respond to simple logic of “if your actions don’t hurt anyone, it’s fine”

I’m good with ending this convo here, have a nice day.

Not seeing how your actions are hurting others, despite them even telling you - is mostly related to lack of empathy. Not that complicated, just simple logic.

Again, creating said artwork would be the action which does not hurt anyone.

Your probably claiming others would use said artwork to hurt people.

That sucks and I don’t support that. But imo one person doing something wrong is on them, it doesn’t make the artwork creator who did nothing wrong guilty.

If I were to make a hammer and sell it, then someone else uses the hammer to kill someone, I wouldn’t be guilty.

Dude, I thought you left?

Your probably claiming others would use said artwork to hurt people.

Again if you would have empathy you could just listen to people, what and how they are hurt by deepfakes and understand what the problem is. Since you don't have empathy, nothing I will tell you would make any sense for you.

Dude, I thought you left?

Your right, the last few comments have been going in circles and I’m probably wasting my time. Will leave this bad faith argument now. Doubt you will ever know what an appeal emotional logical fallacy is.

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It's not about what you think, if a future employeer doing extensive checks on you thinks it's real then that can have real world consequences for you.

Also you are thinking about deepfakes of today and not the deepfakes of 5 years from now or 10 years from now. It will get to a point where no one will be able to tell if they are fake or real.

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The UK populace is showing us that there are other peoples, European peoples, just as stupid as Americans! We are all one people 🤗

Everybody on earth is an idiot - it's just a matter of magnitude and subject matters.

deleted by creator

Is this actual IP ban at ISP level or just the usual dns blocking that can be bypassed with cloudflare dns or something similar

None if the above. It’s a site level for anyone from within the UK.

Oh is see it is the porn site itself blocking the uk visitors, not the uk govt doing fancy blocking. Why people keep posting paywalled shit, i can't read

Oh is see it is the porn site itself blocking the uk visitors

Sure. A little more to it than that though.

AFAIK the UK most likely said "this content is illegal, if you don't remove it, we'll go all Kim Dotcom on your ass" and it's entirely up to the website operator how they want to respond to that. They could fight it like Kim did... might not end well though.

Any large website with user uploaded content receives notices like that routinely (including Lemmy) and most of them respond by deleting the content itself, because it's usually pretty nasty shit or else it wouldn't have got the feds attention. It's treated the same as malware/spam/etc.

For whatever reason, these ones chose to take the entire website offline if necessary.

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i think its mrdeepfakes.but it has too many fake web addresses.and dont know which one is real.

I am just wondering if they are referring to citivai, which tries really hard to be seen as an art and base model/lora site.

AI generated images aren't "deep fakes". Deep fakes came out a long time before image gen did. You take an existing movie and swap out just the face.

Mmmmmm some of the models on CivitAI, with the right workflows, could effectively create the most versatile "deep fakes" possible. You can put someone's face on a blank canvas and tell a model specifically trained for realistic pornography to paint a whole scene around the face. The only advantage here is that doing that is kinda pointless when you can just generate any random face to match your specifications. So ultimately much less harmful so long as the user isn't obsessing over representing a distinct living person.

Also, these are primarily still images. Some animation models exist, but that process is a lot more hit-and-miss. Overall though, I'd argue this whole use case is significantly less damaging than deep fakes due to principals.

Porn fakes are old news, yes - but what the post you replied to is talking about is "deep learning" (remember that, before the great deluge of "AI"?) fakes, which to some extent either uses generative networks to swap out or alter the face/body, or straight up generate simulacra graphics/video, as opposed to a human doing for the most part comparatively bad hack jobs with multiple sources as in the past.

Nah, the site you're referring to still works from the UK.

Oh my goodness pornographic deep fakes that's awful. Where would these awful people go to share such awful things?

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4Chan's deepfake communities are driven by the potential to offend people. Each other, mostly, but offending celebrities, officials and VIPs is worth big digits.

The fappening (famous people getting private pictures leaked to the internet public) was only escalated by threats of state action.

The alt-right thrives on being noticed and hated.