Just when you thought Twitter couldn’t get any lower, it finds new ways to sink further down. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness Xochitl Gomez is 17-years-old. Earlier this month, Gomez appeared on an episode of Taylor and Taylor Lautner’s podcast, The Squeeze. During the episode, Gomez brought up how she found nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfake images of her on the platform. That’s horrible on its own, but it gets worse. When Gomez’s team reached out to have it taken down, they were unable to get Twitter Xchan to remove them. Again, Xochitl is only 17!
“It made me weirded out and I didn’t like it and I wanted it taken down. That was my main thought process was, ‘Down. Take this down. Please,’” Gomez said during the podcast. “It wasn’t because I felt like it was invading my privacy, more just like it wasn’t a good look for me. This has nothing to do with me. And yet it’s on here with my face.”
In a search Friday, NBC News was able to easily find several deepfakes of Gomez on X. A representative for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NBC News reported in June 2023 that nonconsensual deepfakes of young female social media stars were circulating on X despite the platform’s rules against nonconsensual nudity. After reaching out to X, some but not all of the material was removed.
Gomez joins a chorus of girls and women, some famous and some not, who have spoken up about the growing crisis of nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes. Typically, these deepfakes use artificial intelligence to graft the victim’s face into a pornographic image or video. Search engines like Google and Microsoft’s Bing host such material in top image search results for prominent women’s names plus the word “deepfakes,” while links to websites that monetize the material appear in top web results. Both Google and Microsoft’s Bing have search results takedown request forms for nonconsensual deepfake victims and their representatives.
“It’s just weird to think if someone looked up my name, that’s also what pops up, too,” Gomez said during the podcast. “You can’t take them down.”
There is currently no federal legislation in the U.S. addressing nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes and only a patchwork of state laws pertaining to deepfakes, but a federal bill that would criminalize the nonconsensual sharing of the material is awaiting further action.
“Why is it so hard to take down? That was my whole thought on it, was, ‘Why is this allowed?’” Gomez said. “In my mind, I knew that it wasn’t me, so it didn’t mess with me or anything like that. It was just something that felt really uncomfortable because I couldn’t take it down.”
“Nothing good comes from thinking about it,” she added. “I put my phone down […] I do some skincare, I go hang out with my friends, something that will help me forget what I just saw.”
Holy f–-k, this is horrible. Xochitl is way calmer than I’d be about this. Women used to have to worry about revenge porn and now we have to worry about people just straight up creating sexually explicit deepfake images of us. We need to make a lot of noise to draw enough attention to this issue to force X’s billionaire owner to have them removed. That’s got to be the quickest option for now, right?
But seriously, why is it so hard to take down? We all know why it’s so hard to take it down from Twitter, but why is this not a bigger issue for legislatures? That federal legislation that would criminalize it was first introduced in the House of Representatives last May and has stalled. One of the teenage girls who spoke out after it was introduced said that male classmates had created explicit deepfakes of more than 30 girls. This is happening in high schools! Where are the politicians and people who are so concerned about “protecting children” from “sexually explicit content”? Even with such an unproductive House, you’d think this would be a bipartisan no-brainer.
Photos credit: Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon, Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
Our world is run by narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths or has some Machiavellian qualities. A majority of the people on the Epstein list run countries, businesses and are law-makers. Of course they don’t care.
This is unfortunate! I hope more people bring awareness to this. We have the right technology that could end poverty, cure cancer and end world hunger but instead it’s being used for disgusting things such as this!
There needs to be an army of people posting deepfake nudes of Elon Musk and male members of Congress. And not flattering images. Images as these men really look – with their big bellies, flat butts, no muscle tone. And then something will be done.
Honestly, hurting to Elno’s ego will probably result in criminal charges and immediate takedown of the unflattering images, but crickets for the young women who are dealing with the same issue. He and the mostly old, white, male senators are not known for their capacity for empathy. After all, so many Republican senators want to cut social benefits and healthcare for others while maintaining it for themselves.
This is happening more and more now, and it’s disgusting and terrifying that her image is being taken.
Xochitl is a Marvel star and her character is likely to be a major part of the new avengers team – you would think that Disney would be all over this, if only to keep their rising star’s image pristine. And yes, i’s gross to have to depend on Disney’s image consciousness and litigiousness as opposed to lawmakers and tech companies doing what is right.
100% – it isn’t a priority because it doesn’t affect them, and it perpetuates the sense of men having control of women’s bodies, which many of our legislators clearly support. Disgusting. If only men didn’t run the world.
I am just so sorry this minor child has to go through manafactured pornography bearing her likeness. She should copyright her face so no one can use it without her consent. It’s completely unacceptable. Men with power will do little or nothing but only if it’s their privileged valued known to them, earned their respect women. I too am of the opinion if someone put out a deep fake of bloated whale carcass space karen it would get taken down in a second.
This is sadly not surprising.
Apartheid Clyde’s hellscape doesn’t take down deepfakes of minors, nor Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racist slurs, death threats etc etc.
But hey, let’s reinstate Andrew Tate, or Tucker Carlson, or Cheetolini.
A few days ago I was among several dozen people (at least) to report a Tory site pretending to be the National Trust (that looks after historic sites in the UK), complete with a logo that looked *very* deceptively like the NT’s one. Nothing happened (so far), and that Tory site is still doing reputational damage to the NT.
Fingers crossed for Xochitl Gomez and her team to get that stuff to disappear – and for the US to get national takedown laws akin to EU ones. (that no longer apply to the NT because Brexit)
Did you know that Xochitl means “flower” in the Aztec language Nahuatl? I used to work with a group of archeologists in Mexico back in the seventies and all this arcane stuff is still stuck in my brain.
@Jaded – I didn’t know that before I wrote this piece! I Googled how to pronounce her first name and the meaning behind it also came up. How lovely. 🙂
“There is currently no federal legislation in the U.S. addressing nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes and only a patchwork of state laws pertaining to deepfakes..”
Representing a child in a deepfake IS A CRIME. Period.
Isn’t this child p*rn? Which is a federal crime. Why isn’t the FBI all over this? It’s horrible. As the owner of the site, Musk should be criminally responsible.