A TikToker shared that she was being harassed by a man on the internet who created fake nude photos of her using artificial intelligence technology. The woman explained in her now viral video that she was fully clothed in all the photos posted that the man used.
The TikToker who goes by Rach, @rache.lzh5, shared that people said she was “asking for it” in her original video. This backwards mentality highlights the scary reality of being a woman online. No means no, whether it’s a photo being taken or created without someone’s permission or an unwelcome sexual advance.
Her TikTok video has been viewed over one million times. Her story points to the frightening ways that AI technology can be used and the harm it can cause, as well as the need for the legal system to catch up to technology.
She said she was fully clothed in all the photos the man used to create the fake nude images.
“I don’t know how to describe what’s been happening to me the past 48 hours,” an emotional Rach said at the start of her video. “Two days ago someone sent me a message request on Instagram from a faceless account. No followers. No posts, nothing. And it was pictures of me I had posted. Fully clothed, and they had put them through some editing AI program to edit me naked,” she explained. “They basically photoshopped me naked,” she explained on the verge of tears.
“It’s already weird to make that on your own time, but it’s even weirder to send it to me,” she added. “What’s even worse is that the next day when I woke up I was getting dozens of dms of these images without the watermarks. So this person paid to have the watermark removed and started distributing it like it was real.”
Her initial video received disgusting and rude comments from TikTok users.
Rach continued to explain that the photos were obviously fake as they didn’t match her body type. “I’m not built like that,” she said. “I’m just letting you know that anything you see of me is edited or fake. I don’t have any content and I don’t sell any content, none of that is real,” she emphasized.
“It’s even more gross because the first time I tried to post about this I was like ‘it’s not real by the way’ and all the comments were so disgusting like actually vile they made me want to throw up multiple times,” she said through tears.
She also said she got comments saying she asked for it to which she replied, “By what, posting pictures of me with clothes on?! How is that asking for it in any [expletive] way?” She also called the man that edited the pictures of her a “[expletive] rapist” because the photos were not consensual.
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Sadly, she is not the only woman this has happened to.
Going through a situation like this is understandably violating and disturbing and it shouldn’t be happening to anyone. It is never OK to take, share, or edit pictures without someone’s consent and doing so is a form of harassment.
Sadly, a report in 2020 showed that over 100,000 women had fake nude images of them created from social media pictures and shared online, reported BBC News.
AI technology needs to be monitored and the legal system needs to catch up so women and everyone can be safe on the internet.
Some places are taking specific action against this issue, such as the state of Virginia becoming the one of the first to outlaw deep fakes, per BBC. Overall though, there is still a huge gray area for laws to catch up to technology.
Nina Schick, author of the book Deep Fakes said, “It’s only a matter of time until that content becomes more sophisticated. The number of deepfake porn videos seems to be doubling every six months,” the outlet reported.
Schick added that legal systems are not currently keeping up with technology. “Our legal systems are not fit for purpose on this issue. Society is changing quicker than we can imagine due to these exponential technological advances, and we as a society haven’t decided how to regulate this,” Schick said, reported BBC News.
Experiencing something like this is devastating, and hopefully TikToker Rach is receiving the support she needs and deserves after going through this, and that the user who created the photos will be caught and have to answer for their actions.
