A U.K. court has sentenced a 26-year-old man to five years in jail for altering images of over 20 women and posting obscene content, using artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled deepfake technology, in different social media forums.
The convict, identified as Brandon Tyler from Braintree, Essex, was sentenced by a local court for altering pictures of over 20 women and sharing over 170 obscene posts (videos and pictures) related to them on different online forums that allegedly promoted “rape culture” against women.
According to the judgment, Brandon shared a picture of a woman and asked people on the forum which woman should be “gang ra*ed,” showing his harmful and threatening behavior. While delivering the sentencing, the judge observed Brandon’s attitude and actions showed a terrible and harmful attitude toward women.
The conviction of Brandon Tyler comes in the wake of a recently premiered ‘Adolescence’ TV show on Netflix that discusses the rising popularity of internet misogynist Andrew Tate and the increasing trend of toxic masculinity among teenagers and young men of the United Kingdom.
“Toxic masculinity is a term that is often heard. Your humiliating and degrading conduct toward the victims in this case is perhaps the best example. These people had a right to post their images on social media platforms without fear of those images being warped for sexual purposes,” said Judge Alexander Mills.
The prosecutor, Ms. Farrelly, said Tyler carefully planned his actions by searching through social media, finding photos, and changing them however he wanted. He also shared his victims’ real names, social media usernames, and phone numbers online.
The prosecutor said Tyler did this deliberately to cause the women as much upset and embarrassment as possible. Tyler got caught because he accidentally showed his Instagram username in a screenshot he took of one of the women’s accounts.
In court, two of the women cried while telling the judge how Tyler’s actions hurt them. One woman said she still gets creepy, anonymous sexual comments on her phone from strangers, and it ruined her long-term relationship.
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