Atrioc, whose real name is Brandon Ewing, is back on Twitch. He had taken a break from the streaming platform for about a month and a half after accidentally sharing his Chrome browser tabs on a live stream and revealing that he had visited a website that sold explicit, non-consensual deepfakes, particularly those that featured other streamers’ likenesses. mounted on the bodies of porn stars.
Screenshots of the website were widely distributed by those who watched Ewing’s live stream. And the streamers whose likenesses appeared on the deepfake website, including QTCinderella, Maya Higa, Sweet Anita, and Pokimane — some of whom are friends with Ewing — faced the fallout. In the following weeks, the affected women were subject to harassmentwhile explicit images of their likenesses circulated across the internet.
Last Tuesday, Ewing went on a stream to provide an update on the “actions” he has taken in the wake of his deepfake scandal. The stream experienced significant technical glitches causing it to drop in and out as Ewing spoke. He said he worked with “reporters, technologists, researchers, affected women, Twitch itself — I try to work with everyone I can.”
Ewing also apologized for his first tearful apology video he posted on January 30, which has since been removed from his account. In that first apology video, he claimed he navigated to the website by clicking on a PornHub ad out of “morbid curiosity.” On January 31 Ewing had also shared a statement on Twitter via TwitLonger in which he apologized to Maya and Pokimane, and said he was working with QTCinderella and law firm Morrison Rothman to take down the deepfake website. (The website has since been stripped of deepfakes, Vice reported in January.)
During the stream, Ewing said he transferred $60,000 to Morrison Rothman, the law firm that recommended QTCinderella to women affected by the deepfake scandal. Reached for comment, a law firm founder, Ryan Morrison, sent Polygon the following via email:
I can’t confirm who used it or how much (attorney/client privilege), but I can certainly confirm that Atrioc sent a $60,000 retainer to be used exclusively for women affected by deep forgery and similar issues, and that goes *long* way with our rates for such services. Retainers are held and pulled out only when used or an invoice is generated and anything left at the end of the case is returned to the customer. Since it’s an ongoing thing here, it will most likely continue to be used and help with whatever protection we can provide to those affected.
While researching deepfakes, Ewing said he found that the creators of OnlyFans had made progress in the fight against deepfake porn. He found that a company called Ceartas — which uses artificial intelligence to flag the appearance of maker similarities and file DMCA reports — was one of OnlyFans’ security partners, as stated in the site’s Transparency Report 2023.
A Ceartas representative told Polygon via email that the company was built to “specifically combat deepfake pornography, revenge porn, and image-based sexual abuse.” They confirmed that Ewing had worked with them, saying, “Brandon contacted us a few weeks ago for help after being unhappy with a law firm’s work. We offered a trial version on behalf of the creators he mentioned in his stream. This has now gone from trial to service.”
The rep also responded to some of Ewing’s claims regarding the company’s AI model:
As for the statement in the stream that there aren’t enough creators for our AI model, I think maybe Brandon meant specifically in terms of the Twitch streamers. We have just under 500 customers across multiple industries (OnlyFans, Instagram, Patreon, YouTube, etc.) but not that many Twitch-type creators dealing with deepfake issues (since many of them don’t create NSFW content). However, we have tons of data for our AI tools to work with – of course, more edge case data is welcome.
Ewing also said he got help from an unlikely person: Maya Higa, one of the women affected by the deepfake scandal, reportedly responded to his apology and request to work with her. Ewing said they used Ceartas, and they were reportedly able to remove 512 items from Google in 12 hours (Ewing did not specify exactly what was removed). He compared this number to the 51 takedowns Morrison Rothman reportedly issued in February.
Ewing said that after these successful results, QTCinderella also used Ceartas to remove some deepfakes. He also said that Amouranth contacted him and asked him to help her “take things away”.
Polygon has reached out to representatives from QTCinderella, Pokimane, Amouranth and Maya Higa for comment and will update the story when we receive a response.
It is incredibly difficult to prevent deepfake images from being created and to remove them from the internet. As the technology that can be used to make them only gets more advanced – particularly with Generative AI making it easier than ever – the potential for abuse and harassment is increasing also continues to grow. And while laws specifically targeting deepfake porn exist in California and in Virginiasuch protections do not exist at the federal level, and do notoriously difficult to enforce.
Since Atrioc’s livestream in January, the barrage of harassment has been endless for the women targeted by these deepfakes. In January, QTCinderella went into operation to respond to the incident. “Fuck the damn internet. Fuck the constant exploitation and objectification of women — it’s exhausting,” she said. “It looks like this. This is what the pain looks like.” In the following months, she continued to host the Streamer Awards, telling Polygon in a recent interview, “I think every woman in the industry can attest to the fact that it’s just an uphill battle.”
Ewing’s apology video only seemed to reinforce the situation; in January, sweet Anita tweeted that his apology video was how she had discovered explicit deepfakes of hers on a website. In February, Kotaku reported extensively about how the fallout had affected her. “They want to see you as a whore no matter what you do. And they want to hate you for being a whore. It doesn’t matter if you’re in, they’ll make sure you’re in,” sweet Anita said to Kotaku.
In the months following the incident, a number of ads appeared for apps that allow users to create deepfakes, including this one, with a person edited to resemble Emma Watson – also started spreading across Facebook.
It took Twitch over a month to respond to these events. on March 7 Twitch has finally updated some of its policies regarding non-consensual exploitative images (NCEI). The company has updated the language in its Adult Sexual Assault and Exploitation policy to “clarify that intentionally promoting, creating or sharing synthetic NCEI may result in an indefinite suspension.” The adult nudity policy has also been updated to include NCEI. The company consulted with the UK Revenge Porn Helpline and Danielle Keats Citron, vice president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative.
