Anti-deepfake porn hysteria has risen to new heights in the wake of the Taylor Swift scandal. Many countries, including the USA, are rushing to pass knee-jerk legislation designed to put a swift stop to what is perceived as one of the growing menaces of our time. Something that is increasingly being seen as perhaps a bigger threat to humanity, or at least more worthy of attention, than AI replacing all jobs or even causing the extinction of the human race itself.
In the current climate, it’s difficult enough to argue for a rational debate on whether the private use of deepfake porn is wrong and needs legislating. But an associate professor in criminology and criminal justice at Carleton University has gone further. In a controversial and fearless piece published at TheConversation.com, Lara Karaian argues that we do not need laws against deepfake porn, and that the people who make deepfake porn are largely creative sexual fantasists.
In her view, existing revenge porn laws, as well as virtual child pornography laws, are enough to address any real cases of harm caused by the sharing of deepfake porn. In other words, we do not need any specific laws against deepfake porn. She also speaks out against new laws on the basis that they would only promote the prison system and place yet more people inside it.
The author then goes on to explore the motives for the production of Deepfake porn, and argues than in many or most cases, it can be a valid form of sexual expression. She further objects to the conflation of deepfake porn with ‘sexual violence’ and its categorization as being a form of ‘virtual rape’.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to interview or conduct research with deepfake porn prosumers given how widely they are described as depraved, as the embodiment of “toxic geek masculinity,” and as driven by an interest in owning women’s bodies.
Research suggests, however, that many deepfake porn creators are hobbyists who are more interested in contributing “to the development of such technology as solving an intellectual puzzle… rather than as a way to trick or threaten people.”
She concludes :
Concerns about sexual autonomy should inform debates about emerging technologies, but alternative frameworks for making sense of and responding to deepfake porn should be considered before we censor and criminalize deepfake porn producers, consumers and products.
Lara Karaian may want a more nuanced discussion as to the harms and threats of deepfake porn, but it’s unlikely she will get it. It helps at least that she is not only a woman, but a feminist academic. She is also not a completely lone voice in arguing for a more sober and rational discussion on deepfake porn. Late last year the British author and journalist Sam Leith wrote an article that appeared in the Spectator magazine, which asked if ‘deepfake porn was an inevitable part of 21st century life‘. Essentially, he argued that deepfake porn couldn’t be stopped, and that we may as well get used to it.
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