Giorgia Meloni seeks 100,000 euros in damages over deepfake porn videos

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has sought €100,000 (over $100,000) in damages after falling victim to deepfake videos. Several pornographic videos involving Meloni have been circulating on the web, prompting legal action from the prime minister.

Two men accused of creating the videos, a father and son duo, aged 74 and 40 respectively, are currently being investigated under defamation charges, comprising a custodial sentence under Italian law.

The police said they were able to find the accused by tracking down the mobile device that was used to post the videos online.

The deepfake videos were posted on a US pornographic website in 2022, before Meloni was sworn in as the first woman prime minister, and were viewed “millions of times” over several months, as per an indictment.

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Meloni is due to testify at a court in the Sardinian city of Sassari on July 2, seeking “symbolic” damages as per her legal team. If her request for compensation is successful, the 47-year-old will donate $100,000 to a fund that supports women who have been victims of male violence.

“[Meloni demanded compensation to] send a message to women who are victims of this kind of abuse of power not to be afraid to press charges,” her legal team added.

Deepfakes are a form of artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML)to create believable, realistic videos, pictures, audio, and text of events that never happened, as per US Homeland Security.
Meloni is not the first…

Deepfakes have been creating controversy for spreading misleading information about popular personalities, including several global political leaders.

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Pakistani parliamentary elections had previously been targeted by deepfake creators, with one AI-generated audio of Former Pakistani PM Imran Elections in which he was heard saying, “Dear Pakistanis, given the unjustified crackdown on our party and ECI’s collusion (with the ruling coalition), we have lost all hopes of justice and decided to boycott this election.”

Earlier in 2022, a minute-long deepfake video of Ukraine President Volodymr Zelenskyy made rounds on social media, in which seen commanding his soldiers to lay down their arms and surrender the fight against Russia.