The last thing popular Twitch streamer QTCinderella wants to do right now, she told me on a call, is give interviews about her ongoing sexual harassment.
Two weeks ago, Twitch streamer Brandon Ewing, who goes through Atrioc Online, inadvertently showed his open browser tabs while doing a live stream in front of some of his 318,000 subscribers, revealing he had visited a website selling deepfakes , non-consensual AI-generated porn videos — of other streamers. Screenshots then circulated the website’s name, images, and the names of more than a dozen other female streamers whose likenesses appeared on the site, including QTCinderella.
On January 30, he issued a tearful apology live on his Twitch stream, admitting that he had followed a Pornhub advertisement for deepfake porn on a website where he had purchased access to such images, and on February 1 , he published a a longer apology to Twitterwriting: “My actions have transformed me from someone I was proud of, trying to make a positive impact in my community, to a ‘deepfake porn guy’. The scar of this is felt deep within my heart. The creator of the deepfakes, responding to the apology and subsequent speech, erased their web presence and promised not to return.
It was too late, however – the speech had even reached right-wing pundits like Ben Shapiro, and for many of the women whose names and images were leaked and circulated on the internet, the repercussions were horrific. “I think last week was the hardest,” QTCinderella, also known as Blaire, told Motherboard. “I’m not well, whatever that means. I am always sad. I think it’s still hard to take. »
After Ewing slipped on the livestream, people immediately started sending her non-consensual pornographic images of herself. “I was already getting DMs of photos and replies in my tweets before I even had a full understanding of what was going on,” she said. “I think a big problem is that he apologized to the stream before he apologized to one of the women. So we were fucking caught off guard.
The harassment has been relentless, she said. “You go to my YouTube comments, you search for my name, you do whatever. It’s right there. Many other women whose names and images have been shared from the deepfake website Ewing visited, including including Pokimane and Maya Higa, are also experiencing a barrage of harassment and unwanted attention; Last week, Pokimane spoke about it live, addressing comments that she somehow deserved to appear in deepfake porn because she posts selfies. “It doesn’t matter what you post or what you do,” she said.
Not only is talking about online harassment exhausting, but talking about image-based abuse virtually guarantees that the harassment will escalate.
The now ubiquitous porn phenomenon generated by AI started end of 2018, when Motherboard discovered an anonymous Redditor’s programming hobby that was quickly going viral: A user named deepfakes posted algorithmically generated images of famous women’s faces on porn performers’ bodies, giving the impression that they were naked or appeared in sex scenes. it never happened. Since then, and despite still unfounded fears of political misinformation and media manipulation, deepfakes have primarily been used to harass women online.
Streamers and cosplayers are already frequent targets of online misogyny, but AI-generated sexual harassment takes it to another level. It is used to smear and smear them, like blackmail, and can turn their lives upside down within their own families and real communities. Streamers like QTCinderella and others who were targeted in last week’s leak are used to this behavior from people online, but it doesn’t make it easy to manage.
“It’s just another reminder of the retribution you have to pay to be open online,” QTCinderella said. “And the sad thing is, I was never a better person until I started streaming and slowly it consumed me, because it’s just exhausting.” Since seeing the AI-generated images, she’s been struggling with body dysmorphia, a resurgent eating disorder, and resurfacing trauma from her past, she told me. .
“You feel so violated… I was sexually abused as a child, and it was the same feeling,” she said. “Like, where you feel guilty, you feel dirty, you’re like, ‘what just happened?’ And it’s weird that it brings that up again. I really didn’t know that would be the case.
Targets of non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes say that although they know the images are the product of an algorithm, the effect they can have psychologically is as real as if it were an actual leak video of themselves. “It’s my body so convincingly, but not my body, and damn it, my body will never be as perfect as this girl’s body,” QTCinderella said. “My body will never be as lean, I’ll never be as perky as this body. At least in my eyes.”
Her family has also seen the footage, she said, but hasn’t told them yet. “For my 65-year-old dad, it would be hard to explain to him that this isn’t real… I’ve raised tons of money for charity, organized community events and tried to put people forward. who may not have had the opportunity to be showcased. I have done so much. But this is what my family now considers my job.
Part of the aftermath of this viral news is how some commentators have twisted the narrative, she said. Right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro presented the reaction flow of QTCinderella on his Twitch show, using his pain to further his view that all pornography is exploitation. QTCinderella strongly disagrees.
“I am not opposed to sex work. I just don’t want to be a sex worker. That’s it. I think sex work is awesome. I support sex work, and it’s sad to see some of those narratives changing… The issue is consent. I don’t want to be the face of anti sex work because I’m very pro sex work. It’s just fucking miserable that people can take what they want from you and turn it into whatever they want.
“It’s like swimming upstream with a harpoon already inside you.”
In a Twitch stream the same day, Ewing apologized, QTCinderella vowed to sue the creator of the deepfakes. Shortly after the content went viral, the person removed everything from their own page and posted a lengthy apology note on the page where they were selling the content, saying that “after seeing this couple’s situation apologize and some streamers’ reactions who thought [I] ‘didn’t care’, I feel like the total shit that I am.
But the damage was already done; once the images and videos were online, people who shared and leaked them from their original source meant they would likely be online forever.
QTCinderella told me that she has spoken to several legal recourse attorneys, and the consensus is that there is not much that can be done at this point. Several states, including California, Virginia, and Texas, have laws against the creation and dissemination of malicious deepfakes, and most states provide penalties for the dissemination of non-consensual pornography. But the costly and time-consuming burden of taking legal action against a stalker falls on the victims, and since most people who share abusive images online do so anonymously, it can be extremely difficult to get justice.
“The goal, legally, would be to have the website taken down and we’ve already taken it down,” she said. “It’s like swimming upstream with a harpoon already inside you.”
Talking about industry harassment and abuse is a double-edged sword for people who are marginalized online – which is why many women, including some of the world’s most popular online personalities, choose not to comment on the how bullying seeps into their daily lives. The spectacle of Ewing’s actions, apologies and consequences forced the conversation into the open. The shock of it coming from someone who has proclaimed their support for women online, and who is close friends and colleagues with many affected women, added to the intrigue.
QTCinderella does not want this to be part of her story. “But it’s the only option I have to do something in the future,” she said. “I really don’t want to talk about it. However, I hope that in 10 years when my nieces are more on the internet, she won’t have to deal with something like this just to exist as a woman on the internet. It shouldn’t be a price to pay. It shouldn’t be the charges you have every time you log in. It is not fair.