Engagement farmers on TikTok are using AI to manipulate real arrest footage to show police officers kissing and groping arrestees being taken into custody.
The deepfakes, which were discovered by Copyleaks, are grotesque. The AI-manipulated videos are based on actual footage of arrests — which appear to have originally been filmed for reality TV shows like TLC’s “D.U.I.” — but have been altered to depict law enforcement officers kissing and sexually touching real women, as well as a few real men, who were pulled over. The arrestees are often shown wearing handcuffs and being held near, in, or against police cruisers as the fake sexual activity occurs.
These abusive deepfakes are then spliced in front of longer videos of the arrest, a tactic which suggests that the deepfakes were made to get scrolling users hooked so they watch the arrest videos through to the end.
“This is a disturbing example of how AI tools are being used to create deepfake versions of real content to drive attention and engagement on social media,” Copyleaks cofounder and CEO Alon Yamin said in a statement. “It’s important to remember that these videos feature real people — both police officers and citizens — who are being depicted doing things that never happened.”
“That’s concerning,” added Yamin, “for everyone featured and involved.”
In some of the videos, the people being kissed and groped are pictured smiling, implying that they’re willing participants in the sexual advances of police officers who are actively arresting them.
Some of the manipulated videos note the use of AI-generated content, and are additionally outfitted with a disclaimer claiming that the clips are for “entertainment use only with no harmful implication.” That disclaimer, though, rings extraordinarily hollow: sexualized deepfakes, created to manipulate media of real people without their consent, are implicitly harmful.
After we reached out, TikTok removed examples of the content that we specifically flagged, and pointed us to platform guidelines regarding clear labeling of realistic AI content.
More on deepfakes: The Proliferation of Deepfakes Is Profoundly Changing the Way Teenagers Use the Internet
The post Grotesque Engagement Farmers Are Using AI to Manipulate Real Arrest Footage So That Cops Grope Women appeared first on Futurism.
