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Scarlett Johansson is sharing her opinion on deepfake porn, the computer-generated videos using photos of women on the bodies of porn stars.
In an interview with The Washington Post, published Monday, the Avengers actress talks about the impact these videos have on people around the world, herself included.
“Clearly this doesn’t affect me as much because people assume it’s not actually me in a porno, however demeaning it is,” she tells the publication. “I think it’s a useless pursuit, legally, mostly because the internet is a vast wormhole of darkness that eats itself. There are far more disturbing things on the dark web than this, sadly. I think it’s up to an individual to fight for their own right to the their image, claim damages, etc.”
“I mean, this is coming from someone who has a guy from Hong Kong get famous from making an AI with my exact face on it that wasn’t ‘technically’ me,” she continues. “It’s a fruitless pursuit for me but a different situation than someone who loses a job over their image being used like that.”
“Also, every country has their own legalese regarding the right to your own image, so while you may be able to take down sites in the U.S. that are using your face, the same rules might not apply in Germany,” Johansson notes. “Even if you copyright pictures with your image that belong to you, the same copyright laws don’t apply overseas. I have sadly been down this road many, many times.”
She goes on to say that “trying to protect yourself from the internet and its depravity” is basically “a lost cause, for the most part.”
Johansson then warns, “Vulnerable people like women, children and seniors must take extra care to protect their identities and personal content. That will never change no matter how strict Google makes their policies.”
“People think that they are protected by their internet passwords and that only public figures or people of interest are hacked. But the truth is, there is no difference between someone hacking my account or someone hacking the person standing behind me on line at the grocery store’s account,” she says. “It just depends on whether or not someone has the desire to target you.”
“Obviously, if a person has more resources, they may employ various forces to build a bigger wall around their digital identity. But nothing can stop someone from cutting and pasting my image or anyone else’s onto a different body and making it look as eerily realistic as desired,” Johansson concludes. “There are basically no rules on the internet because it is an abyss that remains virtually lawless, withstanding US policies which, again, only apply here.”