Italy: PM Giorgia Meloni falls ‘prey’ to deepfake menace, seeks over £100,000 in damages

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has demanded 100,000 euros (Rs 90,88,800) in damages as she recently fell prey to this malevolent trend of deepfake videos. The emergence of deepfake pornographic and explicit videos featuring her circulated virtually, without her consent as per BBC. She is scheduled to provide testimony in a court in Sassari on July 2.

Further, Giorgia Meloni’s counsel claim and stated that the deepfake videos were uploaded to an adult content website in the US, where they have already garnered “millions of views” over several months. Notably, the tampered videos were already uploaded before her appointment as Prime Minister in 2022, the BBC report stated.

Investigation revealed and charged a 40-year-old man and his 73-year-old father with defamation for allegedly superimposing and swapping Italian top leadership’s image onto the objectionable content and uploading the retouched videos on the internet.

Authorities were able to trace and locate the accused by constantly keeping an eye on the smartphone used for uploading the illicit videos. Italian law states that certain cases of defamation can be categorised as criminal offenses, potentially translating into jail sentences.

The Italian premier’s legal team has championed the request for €100,000 in damages as “symbolic,” indicating that the Prime Minister intends to donate the entire amount to support and promote organizations that assist women who have fallen in the vicious cycle of gender-based violence.

Deepfakes are a form of fabricated and manufactured media created using AI to orchestrate or weaponise visual and audio content, often accompanied with ill intention, to appear authentic. Its genesis stems from Reddit when a user in 2017 by the same name established a platform for sharing pornographic videos made with open-source face-swapping technology.

Deepfake nexus is becoming a sad reality and denting the ecosystem of trust and integrity amongst the public. The misinformation warfare has penetrated deep with such highly advanced technology which can tarnish the unity and sway public opinions to a great extent. Public and global figures are its chief targets for mainly blotting their rapport across and misuse such contents for ulterior motives.