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NOPE
High reported severity Media Coverage

Campaigner reports panic and withdrawal from activism after sexual deepfake abuse

A campaigner described panic after discovering a sexual deepfake of herself in 2020. Reporting also describes threats and disclosure of her addresses. She temporarily stepped back from activism. The account attributes the effects to the combined harassment; the video’s individual contribution is unknown.

AI system
Unidentified video tool
Occurred
2020
Reported
21 October 2022
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Depicted or impersonated the person
Reported harm
Psychological DistressExploitation or Abuse
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Identity · Privacy · Work
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
4 claims: 4 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: Unspecified AI deepfake video tool

Reported harm

The campaigner reported panic and nonconsensual sexual depiction.

Outcome

Unknown

Media Coverage

What remains unknown

  • The exact date and creation location are unknown.
  • The creator, generation software and longer-term outcomes beyond the inspected reporting remain unresolved.
  • The separate effects of the video, threats and doxing are unknown.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. Metro and BBC reporting identify this particular video as a deepfake using AI. The creator and generation software are unverified.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The campaigner described panic on discovering a sexual deepfake video of herself in 2020.

Causal attribution. Participant account; independent verification of the reported consequence is unavailable.

Reported BBC reporting describes threats, disclosure of her addresses and a temporary withdrawal from activism.

Causal attribution. Reported effects of the combined video abuse, threats and doxing; separate contributions cannot be determined.

Reported The same BBC account reports that she later renewed her commitment to campaigning.

Causal attribution. Reported return to activism; does not establish full recovery.

Reported BBC reporting says Twitter removed the video, abusive comments and doxing after a colleague reported them.

Causal attribution. Reported platform removal; complete removal from the internet is not established.

Sources

2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

English article body read directly, L118-L157. Web-reader route was blocked. Draws on the BBC documentary and participant accounts; the film itself was not viewed. Applies to s1.

Portuguese BBC report carried by UOL, read directly. English paraphrase by the model, without bilingual human review. Same documentary/participant chain as Metro, not independent corroboration. Applies to s2.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

The inspected passages establish the campaigner’s British nationality but do not explicitly locate her at the time or establish residence. Country remains unknown.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-25: Concrete adverse experience with a core person relation. Claims remain attributed to their sources. Technical and causal limits are recorded.

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One affected campaigner. Other documentary participants are separate accounts.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Campaigner reports panic and withdrawal from activism after sexual deepfake abuse. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2020-campaigner-deepfake-video-harassment

BibTeX

@misc{2020_campaigner_deepfake_video_harassment,
  title = {Campaigner reports panic and withdrawal from activism after sexual deepfake abuse},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2020-campaigner-deepfake-video-harassment}
}

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