Vicky Pattison is a victim of image based abuse (Picture: Getty)
Vicky Pattison has discovered she is a victim of image based abuse.
The former Geordie Shore star – who has worked with actors to create a deepfake porn video featuring her own image as part of a new Channel 4 documentary – has revealed how ‘takedown’ experts found 1,700 concerning results for her online.
‘I say in the pre-titles of the documentary that I myself have been a victim of sexually explicit, misogynistic abuse online,’ she told The Sun.
While working on Vicky Pattison: My Deepfake Sex Tape, the 37-year-old star found material which is ‘dark in content’ featuring her on the internet.
‘Throughout this documentary, we actually realised that there’s content of me online that I was not entirely aware of,’ she explained.
‘It’s not AI generated but it is dark in content.’
Vicky purposefully distributed a deepfake sex tape online as part of her documentary (Picture: X)
The discovery was made during filming for an educational segment of the documentary to help teach people how to remove graphic content.
Experts used AI technology to ‘scrape’ the internet to help them find and remove the fake tape Vicky leaked as part of the programme.
However, the software also found 1,700 concerning results, including anonymous videos of people pleasuring themselves while looking at her bikini photos.
The Geordie Shore star was shocked to find other content online (Picture: Channel 4)
On other sites, her bikini photos appeared alongside links directing users to AI apps to ‘undress’ the images.
The content is deemed ‘image based abuse’, but because she is clothed in the bikini photos – which were taken consensually – it’s said that others sharing them online isn’t a crime.
However, the law says that if the videos had been sent to her – or if she had been naked, whether that was real nudity or a ‘deepfake’ – it would be classed as a sexual offence.
What is the punishment Labour will introduce for deepfakes?
The UK government plan to make creating sexually explicit ‘deepfake’ images a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years behind bars.
This comes under new offences for taking an intimate image without consent and installing equipment to enable these offences.
New offences also include the taking of intimate images without consent and the installation of equipment with intent to commit these offences.
Vicky shared her own deepfake pornography earlier this month through an anonymous account on X over the weekend to highlight the dangers of this AI technology and ‘to experience what victims of this horrifying and ever-growing trend go through’.
Deepfake technology can place somebody’s face on pornographic images or even videos to create realistic and violating content, with the UK government planning to implement punitive laws to crack down on perpetrators.
‘I wrestled with this decision for a long time, mulling over the permanence of it, and ultimately coming to accept the fact that this content may live online forever,’ she said in a statement, per the Mirror.
Vicky ‘wrestled’ with the decision to post the deepfake video (Picture: David Fisher/Shutterstock)
Earlier this year, Channel 4 released an investigation into five of the most visited deepfake websites where 255 of the almost 4,000 famous individuals are British (and all but two, women).
Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman, who discovered a deepfake porn video of herself last year, said at the time: ”It feels like a violation. It just feels really sinister that someone out there who’s put this together, I can’t see them, and they can see this kind of imaginary version of me, this fake version of me.
”You can’t unsee that. That’s something that I’ll keep returning to. And just the idea that thousands of women have been manipulated in this way, it feels like an absolutely gross intrusion and violation.’
Got a story?
If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.