A fake sexually explicit video of podcast host Bobbi Althoff spread rapidly on X Tuesday afternoon, adding to the platform’s recent challenges in cracking down on deepfakes of female celebrities.
Althoff, a successful TikTok creator-turned-podcaster who has interviewed rappers including Drake and Offset on her show “The Really Good Podcast,” wrote in an Instagram story on Wednesday morning that “the reason I’m trending is 100% not me & is definitely AI generated.”
Deepfakes are a form of manipulated media that uses AI to edit previously existing content. Sexually explicit deepfakes like the one targeting Althoff often take the form of a stolen pornographic video where the original adult performer’s face is “swapped” with the victim’s face.
X has in recent weeks become a breeding ground for nonconsensual deepfakes following the viral spread in January of digitally created, sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift. Such content violates X’s nonconsensual nudity policy, which specifically prohibits “images or videos that superimpose or otherwise digitally manipulate an individual’s face onto another person’s nude body.”