After years of deepfake sites stealing images of popular streamers for their own benefit, Amouranth is calling them out. However, she isn't just going after the sites themselves, but the companies that fund them through advertising, keeping the business profitable. In a tweet thread, Kaitlyn Siragusa, better known as Amouranth on social media, called out a company she has worked with in the past for advertising on a site that created explicit deepfake material of herself. She says this is despite the unknown company apparently priding itself on being a progressive organisation, with Amouranth saying that their "principles go out the door in pursuit of bigger numbers.""It’s super shitty when a platform you worked with previously decides to run advertisements on top of your deepfakes," says Amouranth, in a statement on Twitter (spotted by Dexerto). "It reeks of desperation."While she isn't naming the company, she clarified that it wasn't Fansly or OnlyFans, sites she uses to share adult material that she has consented to and created herself. These deepfake sites not only threaten her business but completely breach her consent, putting her into explicit scenarios that she never took part in.
"The upsides about doing risqué content in the digital age...is it has freed many creators from exploitation and the terrible working conditions the industry is reputed to have," Amouranth continues. "It puts leverage back in the hands of individuals. Advertising on deepfake sites is a big leap backwards."
Deepfake pornography has been circulated online for years, but it became a trending topic in the streaming scene when Twitch streamer Atrioc was found to have accessed one of these sites. The site in question featured explicit material depicting fellow streamers, such as Pokimane and QTCinderella. Atrioc apologised to the streamers that were featured on the site, saying he was "morbidly curious" and only visited once.
However, it was enough to make many women on Twitch aware that their image was being used in this way. Following legal threats, the site Atrioc accessed apologised to everyone involved and shut down. As a result of this incident, Twitch clarified its rules on this material, making it clear that anyone who featured similar sites in their streams would be banned, likely indefinitely. No such incident has happened since.
Yet the issue of adult deepfake material is far from over. As Amouranth has explained, companies are still supporting these sites through advertising, despite the obvious breach of consent involved with creating deepfake pornography. But at the very least, more are aware of these ethical concerns, and big figures such as Amouranth and QTCinderella can call it out on their platforms.