Tech bros need to realise deepfake porn ruins lives – and the law has to catch up

There was a sixfold increase in deepfake pornography in the year to 2023. Unsurprisingly, women were the victims in 99% of recorded cases. Photograph: Ausra Barysiene/Alamy

Imagine finding that someone has taken a picture of you from the internet and superimposed it on a sexually explicit image available online. Or that a video appears showing you having sex with someone you have never met.

Imagine worrying that your children, partner, parents or colleagues might see this and believe it is really you. And that your frantic attempts to take it off social media keep failing, and the fake “you” keeps reappearing and multiplying. Imagine realising that these images could remain online for ever and discovering that no laws exist to prosecute the people who created it.