New York Seizes a Dozen Celebrity Deepfake Websites
Summary
New York authorities seized 12 websites hosting nonconsensual deepfake pornography (fake sexual videos created using AI to place real people's faces into explicit content), affecting around 1,200 victims, mostly women including celebrities and politicians. The takedown was conducted under New York's criminal procedure laws and marks one of the largest enforcement actions against deepfake sites since the technology emerged in 2017.
Solution / Mitigation
The US Take It Down Act allows law enforcement officials to take down and seize websites hosting such content. New York State Supreme Court issued seizure warrants that enabled the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to seize the 12 domains, with the websites now displaying takedown notices stating 'THIS DOMAIN HAS BEEN SEIZED.' Researchers noted the sites became inaccessible even when using VPNs (virtual private networks, tools that mask your location), demonstrating that coordinated law enforcement enforcement action can effectively remove such harmful content.
Classification
Related Issues
Original source: https://www.wired.com/story/new-york-seizes-a-dozen-celebrity-deepfake-websites/
First tracked: September 14, 2026 at 02:01 PM
Classified by LLM (prompt v3) · confidence: 85%