Social media website Reddit Inc, known for its commitment to free speech, on Wednesday shutdown the use of r/deepfakes and r/deepfakeNSFW communities, classifying them as a form of "involuntary pornography."
r/deepfakes and r/deepfakeNSFW are two popular hubs for fake videos, which are created by grafting anyone's face onto pornographic images, videos, and GIFs.
The videos are created with a machine learning algorithm, using easily accessible materials and open-source code that anyone with a working knowledge of deep learning algorithms could put together.
So far, deepfakes has posted hardcore porn videos featuring the faces of Scarlett Johansson, Maisie Williams, Taylor Swift, Aubrey Plaza, and Gal Gadot on Reddit, multimedia publication Motherboard reported.
"Do not post images or video of another person for the specific purpose of faking explicit content or soliciting 'lookalike' pornography," Reddit said in a statement on its website.
"Content that contains nudity, pornography, or profanity, which a reasonable viewer may not want to be seen accessing in a public or formal setting such as in a workplace should be tagged as NSFW (not safe for work). This tag can be applied to individual pieces of content or to entire communities".
On Reddit, anyone can create a community on nearly any topic imaginable and each community is independently moderated by volunteer users. Community members can share content including stories, links, and images.
San Francisco, California-based Reddit has also updated its policy on involuntary pornography and the sexualization of minors.
Reddit follows several other platforms that have already banned deepfakes pornography. That includes Gfycat, Discord, and recently Pornhub, which said that deepfakes imagery counted as nonconsensual pornography.
