Italy's prime minister sues against deepfake porn

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is taking matters into her own hands after being targeted by deepfake porn.

Meloni is seeking €100,000 (£86,200) in damages after fake explicit content of her surfaced online. Her lawyers hope it encourages other victims, mostly women, to press charges.

Reports suggest police believe a 40-year-old man is responsible for producing the videos. His 73-year-old father is said to also be under investigation.

The videos date back to 2022 before Meloni was appointed Prime Minister. They were posted to a US website where they were viewed 'millions of times', according to an indictment.

The Prime Minister is set to testify on July 2 at a court in the Sardinian city of Sassari.

If successful, Meloni plans on donating the money to a fund that supports women who have been victims of male violence.

Meloni’s lawyer, Maria Giulia Marongiu, said it intends to 'send a message to women who are victims of this kind of abuse of power not to be afraid to press charges'.

Sadly, in the US, deepfake porn currently exists in a legal grey area.

Worryingly, cybersecurity expert and What the Hackpodcast co-host Adam Levin told Indy100 that 'as long as every party involved is a legal adult, there aren’t very many laws on the books to prevent or punish the distribution of illicit content'.

He claimed 'It’s nearly impossible to remove any content published online, pornographic or otherwise', before adding: "That said, if all the parties are known, there may be legally actionable kinds of deepfake porn content."

As for how people can protect themselves against falling victim to deepfake porn, he said: "Unfortunately, the only way to avoid having your likeness used in a deepfake, porn or otherwise, is to not allow your likeness to be posted online.

"Any publicly accessible photograph makes you vulnerable to this activity."

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