Deepfakes have been a huge talking point among politicians and those who work in the legal field ever since they’ve gained traction—mostly because they pose a number of legal issues, including using the likeness of people in explicit content without consent.
While it’s been an issue for a while, it was thrown back into the spotlight this week after Twitch star Atrioc was caught watching deepfakes of female streamers live on-stream.
Several streamers have come forward to express their concerns about the deepfake plague, including QTCinderella, who—like many other female streamers—has been directly impacted by it, and vowed to sue the creator of the website Atrioc was caught watching.
Pokimane broke her silence on the issue too, urging everyone to “stop sexualizing people without their consent,” which she believes is the root cause of the problem, and she’s not alone. More than 135,000 people seemed to agree by liking the tweet, while another 9,000 retweeted it to help spread the message.
There is legislation in place in the U.S. that prohibits the creation and distribution of sexually explicit deepfake content without consent from the person whose likeness is used, but it’s confined to several states like California, New York, Texas, and Virginia.
It seems like it’s only a matter of time before more states follow suit, especially given how many streamers and celebrities are having their likeness used without consent. But it’s also important for people to understand why it’s wrong, and that’s what Pokimane’s message is all about.
