[...]
Women who take on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have long been targeted in coordinated, online sexual harassment campaigns. These campaigns are massive in scale and driven by state-linked actors in China, technology companies like Meta and OpenAI have said.
What is new is that some are pushing back by calling out the behavior and publicizing the images. This week Rome-based [human rights activist Laura] Harth went public with the images on the website of her employers, Safeguard Defenders. She told Newsweek that the shame was not hers, but her attackers'.
"I don't identify with these images at all, and I hope that is a taboo we can break. Because that's not you. That's an image of the CCP," Harth said.
As for the people—probably mostly men—running the campaigns: "It's up to you to explain it to your wife," she said.
[...]
Newsweek spoke to four women who are politically active who say they have been the targets of such campaigns. They live in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy.
All were certain that the attacks come from China and increased when they engaged in campaigns or published reports, or coincided with specific events sensitive in the Chinese political calendar, they said. All want the authorities where they live to take action to stop it.
[...]
An expert on intelligence matters told Newsweek that the situation was "classic sex kompromat", a Russian term for material designed to entrap and discredit. One image of Su includes text in Russian.
Women are targeted in this way, because "shame is a very feminine vulnerability," said Nathalie Vogel, a research fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.
Previously, security agencies in repressive regimes such as East Germany or the Soviet Union used doppelgänger, or body doubles, to film or trap people, Vogel said.
"The Stasi [East German secret police] had a formidable collection of look-alikes for such operations," she said.
"But the age of AI has revolutionized the techniques of kompromat," Vogel said.
Canada-based political commentator and CCP critic Zang Xihong uses the online pen name Sheng Xue. She also supplied Newsweek with explicit, fake images.
[...]
Zang said the Canadian authorities failed to help. "I went to the police station, but the police officer said they couldn't do anything, because I am an adult."
In the U.S. the first conviction for creating AI-generated obscene material took place in Ohio in April, following passage of the Take It Down Act last year.
The law to prosecute harmful deepfake images was championed by first lady Melania Trump. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni posted a fake image of herself in lingerie in March to warn about the phenomenon, which she called cyberbullying. Italy legislated against AI deepfakes last year.
"I think that's the best way to deal with it. The law," said Zang. "But to get China to stop, to admit they're doing it, that's very, very difficult."
The harassment works, Zang said. "Attacking women like this is an old tactic. It's one reason why there are relatively few female Chinese dissidents."
[...]
Concerning but if the only source is Meta and OpenAI I would require a better, you know, more legitimate source.
There are several sources cited in the article, one of them is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20260531105037/https://safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/fake-porn-smears-and-harassment-beijings-public-security-work
Newsweek interviewed the victims. I seriously doubt the government sponsors deepfake porn, its probably some unhinged nationalists, like 95% of the rest of AI revenge porn.
The government doesn't have to be officially involved if they just tacitly support unhinged nationalists....
China isn't most governments.
You're right, there are more politicians than the UK has people.
There is no one singular government.
China Bad
They told Newsweek they were certain the attacks came from china.
While I take such scandals seriously and believe these people are victims and something should be done about it, I don't think feelings of certainty alone are enough of a source to show that the Chinese government is indeed responsible for this.
You'd be surprised how aligned with their typical playbook such an act would be.
The idea isn't just to harass her. It's to paint her as a persona non grata.
Underhanded and psychological/reputational damage to dissenters is absolutely nothing new to the CCP.
I remember this line from the Satanic Panic of the 80s
Then you may wish to read a bit more about how the CCP handles 'undesirables' both locally and abroad. Deep fake porn is neither a stretch or an escalation from them.
I mean, I've read the article. I don't know if you've done the same. Nothing in it is more than allegations and assumptions by Facebook users yelling at one another.
It's no different than if someone did an article about Lemmy and reported "Multiple moderators have confirmed that a large Russian-financed anti-American coalition known as 'Tankies' have harassed God-fearing Israel-loving American truth-speakers on the platform."
Okay?
I've read the article.
I've also done reading about what else the CCP does to people it doesn't like, and how it creates an environment of deniability.
Being surprised at this is also like being surprised the Nazis used imprisoned Jews as slave labour.
The US churns out propaganda by the bucket load. I'm sure you've heard all sorts of crazy shit.
I do wonder if you've noticed how often organs like the Epoch Times and New York Post co-mingle reactionary takes against the Chinese government with Republican talking points.
I'd require evidence that links X crime to Y party before I believed in it. I may be more inclined to believe this pattern could be a CCP tactic if I'd known of the evidence of it prior, but still.
Just because you don't trust the source doesn't mean you can't come to your own conclusion
I don't come to conclusions about a subject if the narrative doesn't come from a trustworthy source.
Yes you do
I don't (asides from "insufficient data to come to conlusion"). It's irrational. You are free to do that if you wish.
I mean you might think you don't do that, but you do. Constantly. Hundreds of times a day
Nope.
Why are you bothering to talk to me, I could just be a bot wasting your time and you'd have no idea. You've assumed I'm a person on the other end of this line
I've worked with AI enough to be able to tell when I'm talking w AI and when I'm not. Not a subject that requires sourcing, so you're making a fallacious analogy; this isn't the same as reporting of world events.
Bahahaha what lol. Thanks for proving my point, bye
Not the gotcha you think this is, lol.