‘No excuses’: Man’s sick deepfake porn act against close female friend

A woman has revealed the twisted act a close friend committed — one that cost him 20 weeks in prison but cost her so much more.

A woman has revealed that a close friend of hers made sick fake pornography using her face, then shared it online.

The victim, who is using the pseudonym Jodie so that her identity remains protected, told the BBC’s File on 4 that she discovered the fake images and video, which were “deepfaked” after they were sent to her, The Sun reports.

“Deepfaking” is when a person’s face is projected onto another person’s body using computer editing software. It can create very convincing clips, which can be used to spread misinformation.

In the videos, Jodie’s face had been “deepfaked” onto that of another woman, who was performing sex acts.

She also discovered that someone had uploaded pictures of her to a porn site, requesting someone to make a deepfake of her.

This person had promised to provide more pictures of Jodie, and share her personal details, in exchange for the deepfake videos.

Jodie said she was left “screaming and crying” following the incident, which occurred in 2021.

She then suffered years of online harassment from strangers, including from Reddit users mocking her appearance and from X users who posted the pictures with explicit captions.

“Non-consensual intimate media (NCIM) has no place on the Reddit platform. The subreddit in question has been banned,” a Reddit spokesperson said.

Jodie’s friend Daisy (also a pseudonym) was also included in some of the images, and the pair compiled a list of men who they thought could be responsible.

She had assumed that she could rule out some close male friends, however, after looking at the deepfakes, she realised that there was only one person who she had shared the image used with: Alex Woolf.

Woolf, who won BBC Young Composer of the Year in 2012, and was a contestant on Mastermind nine years later, had bonded with Jodie over a shared love of music.

She said that he had always come across as a man who was sympathetic to the struggles faced by women online.

Jodie took her findings to the police, and Woolf ended up being convicted for the grossly offensive communications.

Woolf, who is a Cambridge graduate, was given a 20-week prison sentence, suspended for two years at Thames Magistrates’ Court in August 2021.

Reflecting on how she feels about her former friend betraying her, Jodie told the BBC: “He knew the impact that it was having on my life so profoundly. And yet he still did it.”

Woolf denies being involved in the online harassment which followed the creation of the deepfakes. However, he told the BBC he is “utterly ashamed” and “deeply sorry” to Jodie for how his behaviour has affected her life.

“I think about the suffering I caused every day, and have no doubt that I will continue to do so for the rest of my life,” he said.

“There are no excuses for what I did, nor can I adequately explain why I acted on these impulses so despicably at that time.”

Jodie is calling for it to be made an offence in the UK to ask someone else to create a deepfake for you.

“This is affecting thousands of women and we need to have the proper laws and tools in place to stop people from doing this,” she said.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission.

In Australia, image-based abuse is a breach of the Online Safety Act 2021, and under the Act, perpetrators can be issued a fine or imposed with jail time in some jurisdictions. Any Australian whose images or videos have been altered to appear sexualised and are published online without consent can contact eSafety for help to have them removed.