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After allegations against Christian UlmenHow do I find out if deepfakes of me are circulating online?
Can you find out if there are deepfakes of yourself on the Internet?
Marcus Brandt/dpa
Nude pictures, sex videos, phone calls!
Collien Fernandes has reported her ex-husband Christian Ulmen because he was said to have created fake accounts in her name for years and used them to spread deepfakes of the moderator. Since this news swept through Germany like wildfire on Thursday, many have been asking themselves: Can this happen to me too and HOW do I find out whether deepfakes of me are circulating online? We asked our colleagues at RTL Verification.
Pictures, videos, sex calls: Collien Fernandes is said to have been “virtually raped” by his ex-husband
Deepfakes look deceptively real, but that's exactly what they are. It is AI-generated content – photos, videos or audio files – that shows things that never actually happened. Christian Ulmen is said to have published fake pictures and videos with sexual content of his ex-wife Collien Fernandes. He is even said to have offered phone sex with Collien's AI-generated voice.
So far, only Collien Fernandes has commented publicly on the issue. Ulmen's lawyers responded to a request from RTL with an email that cannot be quoted. Questions about the allegations against Ulmen remained unanswered. Christian Ulmen is presumed innocent.
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In the video we explain what makes it so easy for perpetrators to create deepfakes and why the creation itself is not even a punishable offense per se.
Are there deepfakes of me on the internet? THIS is how you find out
Are there deepfakes of me online too? A question that many people are probably asking themselves right now. But how can you find out if you are not a professional in this topic?
We asked the RTL verification team. Burak Kahraman explains: “In order to detect possible deepfake recordings of yourself, a simple query in common search engines could be enough.” All you need is the person’s name “in combination with appropriate keywords”. This means you can “quickly come across bizarre sites with pornographic content”. However, the expert explains, Google doesn't deliver the best results: “Platforms such as the Russian Yandex can be more targeted in their results because they restrict such content less than Google does.”
Reading tip: It's about sex and money! These celebrities have already fallen victim to the deepfake scam
And he points out that this variant of course also requires that the name of the real person was used in connection with the deepfakes – “that is often not the case”.
But Burak Kahraman further explains: “However, there is Search engines that offer the reverse image search function and AI-based tools that specialize in finding additional facial images of a person online.” With this variant, just a picture of you is enough to find out whether your face was used for deepfakes.
But here too he points out: “If there are no thumbnails or pages that prohibit search engines from being searched, you will reach your limits.”
Source used: own RTL research
