From 404 Media
Mr. Deepfakes, the Biggest Deepfake Porn Site on the Internet, Says It’s Shutting Down for Good
By Emanuel Maiberg and Samantha Cole
Mr. Deepfakes, the go-to site for nonconsensual deepfake porn, says it’s shutting down and not coming back because it lost a service provider and data.
“A critical service provider has terminated service permanently. Data loss has made it impossible to continue operation,” a notice that appears when visitors go to the site now says. The site’s forums and videos are no longer available at the time of writing. “We will not be relaunching. Any website claiming this is fake. This domain will eventually expire and we are not responsible for future use. This message will be removed around one week...”
“While this is an important victory for victims of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), it is far too little and far too long in the making,” Hany Farid, a professor at UC Berkeley and one of the world’s leading experts on digitally manipulated images, told us in an email. “The technology, financial, and advertising services that continue to profit from and enable sites like mrdeepfakes have to take more responsibility for their part in the creation and distribution of NCII. While this takedown is a good start, there are many more just like this one, so let’s not stop here...”
Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley and a senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project.
