#the entire article is worth reading - they interview a victim and the creator of deepfakes too

[maslows-pyramid-scheme]

There's a marketplace for deepfakes in online forums. People post requests for videos to be made of their wives, neighbours and co-workers and - unfathomable as it might seem - even their mothers, daughters and cousins. Content creators respond with step-by-step instructions - what source material they'll need, advice on which filming angles work best, and price tags for the work. A deepfake content creator based in south-east England, Gorkem, spoke to the BBC anonymously. He began creating celebrity deepfakes for his own gratification - he says they allow people to "realise their fantasies in ways that really wasn't [sic] possible before." Later, Gorkem moved on to deepfaking women he was attracted to, including colleagues at his day job who he barely knew. "One was married, the other in a relationship," he says. "Walking into work after having deepfaked these women - it did feel odd, but I just controlled my nerves. I can act like nothing's wrong - no-one would suspect." Realising he could make money from what he refers to as his "hobby", Gorkem started taking commissions for custom deepfakes. Gathering footage from women's social media profiles provides him with plenty of source material. He says he even recently deepfaked a woman using a Zoom call recording. "With a good amount of video, looking straight at the camera, that's good data for me. Then the algorithm can just extrapolate from that and make a good reconstruction of the face on the destination video." He accepts "some women" could be psychologically harmed by being deepfaked, but seems indifferent about the potential impact of the way he is objectifying them. "They can just say, 'It's not me - this has been faked.' They should just recognise that and get on with their day. "From a moral standpoint I don't think there's anything that would stop me," he says. "If I'm going to make money from a commission I would do it, it's a no brainer ... [but] if I could be traced online I would stop there and probably find another hobby."