SBS Asking For It: Noelle Martin exposes deepfake porn photo hell

For 10 years, Perth woman Noelle Martin has been targeted by sex abusers online who relentless create fake pornographic images of her.

When Noelle Martin became the target of image-based sexual abuse, it was such a new crime, there wasn’t even a name for it.

Now it’s so prolific, and has advanced to include fake videos that can be generated at the click of a button, experts are warning we’re facing an “epidemic”.

Martin was just 18 when she discovered images had been stolen from her social media account and photoshopped onto the bodies of adult film stars.

These pictures falsely depicted her in graphic sexual scenarios that were “completely horrifying, dehumanising, degrading”.

What ensued was a lengthy battle to get the disturbing snaps removed from the internet.

Noelle Martin was just 18 when she became the target of image-based sexual abuse. Picture: Paul Kane

Pictures falsely depicting her in graphic sexual scenarios flooded multiple pornographic sites. Picture: SBS

But while the Perth-based lawyer successfully helped reform laws in 2018, criminalising the distribution of non-consensual intimate images in Australia, she was powerless to prevent more explicit images being created and shared.

The perpetrators were relentless, and as technology advanced, so did their crimes – with Martin’s face later being overlayed on pornographic videos, a phenomenon known as “deepfake”.

Due to ever-improving artificial intelligence technology, the videos are disturbingly realistic, replicating a persons likeness and movements to a tee while simultaneously creating a new dimension of trauma for victims.

Martin, who is now 28, told news.com.au that many still sadly don’t understand the “toll” it takes on a person who experiences this digital form of sexual abuse.

“This is something that you cannot escape from because it is a permanent, lifelong form of abuse,” she said.

“They are literally robbing your right to self-determination, effectively, because they are misappropriating you, and your name and your image and violating you permanently.

“You do not have control over the way that you’re represented, and the way that you that you that you present to the rest of the world, and that impacts everything, from your economic freedom, to your employability, to your interpersonal relationships, to your romantic relationships to your physical and emotional wellbeing.”

Ten years on, Martin is now a dedicated advocate for online sexual abuse, and appears in a new SBS doco Asking For It. Picture: SBS

Martin is appearing on the new SBS docuseries Asking For It, which explores the importance of consent education amid prevalent rape and sexual violence numbers.

Everyday an average of 85 sexual assaults are reported in Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports.

This is estimated to be a fraction of the total number that occur – with an estimated 90 per cent of sexual assaults going unreported, data from a 2020 report conducted by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare determined.

One in 10 Australians have now experienced image-based abuse according to a recent report, a figure Martin believes could be lowered if more people understood consent.

“There’s a false distinction about the, that what happens online is, is entirely separate from what happens in the real world,” she said.

“Our lives are completely fused in the digital age between what happens on the internet and what happens in real life.

“What people post and images of them and their, their likeness and their bodies, even in digital form, I would say is, is an extension of their body.”

The digital abuse continues to this day, and now includes multiple deepfake porn videos. Picture: SBS

She explained that “taking someone else’s image without asking for consent” is a major issue as it causes huge harm.

“If you are going out of your way to take someone else’s body, someone else’s image and likeness and do horrific things to it and violate it and dehumanise it, and misappropriate it without asking for permission without or consent, then that is that is a problem.

“People want control of what happens to their bodies, and to their lives and their sexualities, and their personhood.

“And if we had greater consent, education, then people would recognise other people’s boundaries, what is acceptable and what is not.”

Martin appears alongside several high-profile sexual assault survivors on the show, including Saxon Mullins, Grace Tame and Adele (delsi) Moleta, to shed light on their experiences navigating the legal system, fighting for law reform and dealing with trauma.

Martin believes educating people on consent would help lower victim numbers. Picture: SBS

While the series, hosted by investigative journalist Jess Hill, explores what needs to be done to shift Australia from a rape culture to a consent culture, Martin’s hopes for her advocacy work simple.

“I would love to see this kinds of online [sexual] abuse taken as seriously as what happens in the real world,” she told news.com.au.

“And I would love to see and live in a world where women in particular, are free to exercise their agency to live their full lives to reach their potential, without being abused without fear of abuse, and that their boundaries as well as their dignity and humanity are respected. “That’s a world that I would love for, you know, my nieces and future generations.”

Asking For It, a three-part series, premieres at 8.30pm April 20 on SBS and SBS On Demand.

Originally published as SBS Asking For It: Noelle Martin exposes deepfake porn photo hell