QTCinderella stares into legal void over explicit deepfakes

Victim of fake adult videos is trying to sue website owners

Twitch streamer QTCinderella has vented her frustration with the inadequacies of the US legal system after she couldn’t find a lawyer to file a suit against the owner of a website that published deepfake porn videos depicting her.

She had previously vowed to sue the porn site hosting the deepfakes in an emotional livestream, saying: "And to the person that made that website, I'm going to fucking sue you. I promise you, with every part of my soul. I'm going to fucking sue you."

QTCinderella and other female Twitch stars discovered that deepfake porn using their faces was available online in a viral clip from fellow streamer Atrioc, who afterwards apologized for the incident. He stepped down from content creation in the aftermath of this scandal, stating that he’d help cover legal fees for those who want to try and combat such porn websites.

In an interview with NBC News, QTCinderella commented that the response she got from the lawyers she spoke to, who are familiar with the issue, was “disheartening”.

“Every single lawyer I’ve talked to essentially has come to the conclusion that we don’t have a case,” she told NBC. “There’s no way to sue the guy.”

While regulation of deepfakes is under way in the UK, where the use of one’s image for deepfakes without consent and permission will be punishable, the US has no such legal tools available to victims right now. That makes it very difficult to legally combat the creators of this sort of content.

The incident had another effect on QTCinderella, which she opened up about towards NBC: body dysmorphia. “When you see a porn star’s body so perfectly grafted onto where yours should be,” the streamer said, “it’s the most obvious game of comparisons that you could ever have in your life. I cried and was like ‘my body will never be like that.’”

Another one of the victims, Sweet Anita, recently said that while “there isn’t any moving on” from the incident for her, she is skeptical about the effect of legal measures. “Frankly, you can change the law, but the law won’t change anything until the culture does”, she commented.