DeepfakeHigh
San Francisco City Attorney Sues Operators of AI Deepfake Pornography Websites for Violations of State and Federal Law
- Occurred
- Aug 15, 2024
- Published
- Mar 18, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
In August 2024, the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against 16 websites accused of using generative AI to create and distribute nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes, including images of minors. The sites, which had over 200 million visits in six months, invited users to upload real images to generate explicit fakes. By March 2025, 11 of the targeted websites had shut down following legal pressure.
Developers
- Deepfake technology developers
- Synthetic media generation technology developers
Deployers
- Operators of 16 deepfake pornography websites
- Synthetic media creators
- Deepfake creators
Harmed parties
- Minors depicted in deepfake pornography
- Women
- Women and girls
- Girls
- Minors
- Privacy
- Victims of deepfake abuse
- Victims of deepfake child abuse
- Victims of non-consensual deepfakes
- People depicted in non-consensual intimate imagery
Tags
- Deepfake pornography
- Non-Consensual Intimate Image Abuse
- CSAM
- San Francisco
- Legal action
- Lawsuit
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: Lawsuit targets AI-generated nonconsensual pornography involving minors, causing significant legal and social harm.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8