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Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni is suing a father and son accused of creating deepfake pornographic videos of her and posting them online.
A 40-year-old man and his 73-year-old father are being tried for defamation in a landmark civil case in Sardinia after superimposing the face of Italy’s first female leader on to the bodies of adult film actresses.
Police were able to track the men behind the videos via a digital trail left by the smartphones used to upload them to an American porn website.
If victorious in the trial, slated for July, Ms Meloni has said she will donate the symbolic sum of €100,000 (£85,000) to a fund supporting victims of domestic violence, in order to encourage other women not to be afraid to press charges when faced with online abuse.
Deepfakes are realistic-looking videos, images or audio clips that depict people in situations they have never actually been in by using technology that digitally enhances or changes content.
According to the Ban Deepfakes campaign, deepfake sexual content increased by more than 400 per cent between 2022 and 2023.
Fake pornographic images of Emma Watson, Kristen Bell and Taylor Swift, among others, have gone viral, sometimes being seen millions of times before platforms remove the content.
As user-friendly tools make the technology easier to use, celebrities and everyday citizens are being targeted, not just by pornographic fakes but also advertising scams and fraud.
On Sunday, Ms Meloni’s personal Instagram page was hacked by a fraudster trying to make it appear she was supporting a made-up Elon Musk Bitcoin giveaway.
The Italian criminal case reflects a recent European-wide effort to crack down on digital abuse and defamation online.
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