The app is available in digital stores, just download it, it doesn’t ask for age, name or surname. As soon as we enter we find ourselves faced with a series of pre-packaged models, the first that appears is a video from the “Magic Holiday” section where a boy and a girl kiss under the mistletoe.
“Grab your crush and make a video“, below there is a clip of a man and a woman kissing. I’m scrolling through TikTok and this ad appears. It’s not the first, for a few days they keep appearing in my feed sponsored videos of apps that allow you to kiss whoever you want with a couple of clicks. Among these there is Fotorama. The technology to create “deepfakes,” or fake videos that look real, is now available on smartphones. It’s simple, fun and above all unsettling.
Until a few years ago, to create a deepfake video, so called in honor of the “deep learning” artificial intelligence used to generate faces, you needed a powerful computer, now everything is concentrated within an app that probably processes the data in the cloud, and with a couple of clicks yes manipulates the face and body of a person, anyone can become a puppet in our hands.
There is already a wide range of choices among deepfake apps, there are those that allow you to create a lip-sync music videowho changes the style or the haircutand who animate photos of the deceased. But the real market for deepfakes is sexually explicit images. An epidemic of deepnuede is already spreading in schools. Girls, often minors, find themselves faced with fake images of them without clothes. Fake kissing apps I am alone at the threshold of the non-consensual deepfake den. We went in to see how they really work.
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How the Fotorama app works
The app is available in digital stores, just download it, It doesn’t ask for agename or surname. As soon as we enter we find ourselves faced with a series of pre-packaged models, the first that appears is a video from the “Magic Holiday” where a boy and a girl kiss under the mistletoe. We click on it. It asks us to upload two images, which will compose the faces that will kiss. I take a photo of my colleague and then we choose an image of Jenna Ortega. At that point just click on Generate and wait a few seconds. The video will then appear in the app’s personal folder.
The result is not perfect. The software is rough, the nose is squashed and some expressions are plastic. Not only that, but the proportions are also wrong, sometimes one face is larger than another or at a different height. But it is still impressive how an app that starts from a photo, often a poorly taken selfie, can generate it an almost realistic video.
To make the videos we had to sign up for a week’s subscription for 9.99 euros. A paltry amount. There are also other apps that promise the same service for freeor with a trial before subscribing. The proliferation of apps is reflected in the numbers. According to a report from the IT group Home Security Heroes the production of deepfake porn between 2022 and 2023 increased by 464%.
The problems of non-consensual deepfakes
Deepfake apps promise different services. “It’s all very cute when we do it with photos of grandpa,” she explained Anjana Susarlaprofessor in charge of artificial intelligence at Michigan State University at the Washington Post. “But you can take anyone’s photo from social media and create manipulated images. That’s what worries me.”
We are not ready for deepfakes at our fingertips, there is a lack of social norms, a legal framework and above all awareness of the risks. “You have to make sure that the public actually knows that it is synthetic media“he stressed Gil PerryCEO of D-ID , the tech company powering MyHeritage deepfakes. “We must establish the guidelines, frameworks and policies for the world to know what is good and what is bad.”
Among the main problems is the possibility of using deepfakes as a weapon against women, to create false and humiliating non-consensual pornography. As shown by data from DeepTrace, an Amsterdam-based company that monitors synthetic media online, the 96% of the material is deepfake online It is pornographic in naturethe victims are almost always women.
How to protect ourselves from fake videos that look real
The stores that distribute these apps should establish some standard. These apps are easily found on the App Store and Play Store, there don’t seem to be specific filters from Apple and Google. It would also be necessary label with watermarks deepfake content so you can immediately identify it. Not only that, social networks should reinforce protective barriers by adopting automatic labeling of deepfakes.
If you are the victim of a deepfake, it is necessary document the abuse and acquire evidence in case legal action is necessary. Then take screenshots of the modified images, the platforms where they were uploaded, and the removal requests presented. Finally it is necessary file a report immediately with the postal police.
