Deepfakes weaponised to target Pakistan’s women leaders
B yAFP
December 2, 2024
In Pakistan, deepfakes are being weaponised to smear women in the public sphere with sexual innuendo deeply damaging to their reputations in a country with conservative mores - Copyright AFP Amna YASEEN
Juliette MANSOUR, Shrouq TARIQ
Pakistani politician Azma Bukhari is haunted by a counterfeit image of herself — a sexualised deepfake video published to discredit her role as one of the nation’s few female leaders.
“I was shattered when it came into my knowledge,” said 48-year-old Bukhari, the information minister of Pakistan’s most populous province of Punjab.
Deepfakes — which manipulate genuine audio, photos or video of people into false likenesses — are becoming increasingly convincing and easier to make as artificial intelligence (AI) enters the mainstream.
In Pakistan, where media literacy is poor, they are being weaponised to smear women in the public sphere with sexual innuendo deeply damaging to their reputations in a country with conservative mores.
Bukhari — who regularly appears on TV — recalls going quiet for days after she saw the video of her face superimposed on the sexualised body of an Indian actor in a clip quickly spreading on social media.
“It was very difficult, I was depressed,” she told AFP in her home in the eastern city of Lahore.
“My daughter, she hugged me and said: ‘Mama, you have to fight it out’.”
After initially recoiling she is pressing her case at Lahore’s High Court, attempting to hold those who spread the deepfake to account.
“When I go to the court, I have to remind people again and again that I have a fake video,” she said.
– ‘A very harmful weapon’ –
In Pakistan — a country of 240 million people — internet use has risen at staggering rates recently owing to cheap 4G mobile internet.
Around 110 million Pakistanis were online this January, 24 million more than at the beginning of 2023, according to monitoring site DataReportal.
In this year’s election, deepfakes were at the centre of digital debate.
Ex-prime minister Imran Khan was jailed but his team used an AI tool to generate speeches in his voice shared on social media, allowing him to campaign from behind bars.
Men in politics are typically criticised over corruption, their ideology and status. But deepfakes have a dark side uniquely suited to tearing down women.
“When they are accused, it almost always revolves around their sex lives, their personal lives, whether they’re good mums, whether they’re good wives,” said US-based AI expert Henry Ajder.
“For that deepfakes are a very harmful weapon,” he told AFP.
In patriarchal Pakistan the stakes are high.
Women’s status is typically tied to their “honour”, generally defined as modesty and chastity. Hundreds are killed every year — often by their own families — for supposedly besmirching it.
Bukhari describes the video targeting her as “pornographic”.
But in a country where premarital sex and cohabitation are punishable offences, deepfakes can undermine reputations by planting innuendo with the suggestion of a hug or improper social mingling with men.
In October, AFP debunked a deepfake video of regional lawmaker Meena Majeed showing her hugging the male chief minister of Balochistan province.
A social media caption said: “Shamelessness has no limits. This is an insult to Baloch culture.”
Bukhari says photos of her with her husband and son have also been manipulated to imply she appeared in public with boyfriends outside her marriage.
And doctored videos regularly circulate of Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif — Bukhari’s boss — showing her dancing with opposition leaders.
Once targeted by deepfakes like these, women’s “image is seen as immoral, and the honour of the entire family is lost”, said Sadaf Khan of Pakistani non-profit Media Matters for Democracy.
“This can put them in danger,” she told AFP.
– Fighting the fakes –
Deepfakes are now prevalent across the world, but Pakistan does have legislation to combat their deployment in disinformation campaigns.
In 2016, a law was passed by Bukhari’s party “to prevent online crimes” with “cyberstalking” provisions against sharing photos or videos without consent “in a manner that harms a person”.
Bukhari believes it needs to be strengthened and backed up by investigators. “The capacity building of our cybercrime unit is very, very important,” she said.
But digital rights activists have also criticised the government for wielding such broad legislation to quash dissent.
Authorities have previously blocked YouTube and TikTok, and a ban on X — formerly Twitter — has been in place since after February elections when allegations of vote tampering spread on the site.
Pakistan-based digital rights activist Nighat Dad said blocking the sites serves only as “a quick solution for the government”.
“It’s violating other fundamental rights, which are connected to your freedom of expression, and access to information,” she told AFP.
Online harassment reaches new heights as 'emboldened manosphere' emerges: report
Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash
woman holding iPhone during daytime
Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash
woman holding iPhone during daytime
November 30, 2024
In the days following Donald Trump's presidential victory, an alarming surge in misogynistic rhetoric and threats against women has emerged online and in real life, according to a report from the Associated Press. Dubbed the 'emboldened manosphere', the trend has left many women feeling unsafe and compelled to take protective measures.
Sadie Perez, a 19-year-old political science student in Wisconsin profiled in AP's report, now carries pepper spray with her on campus. Her mother ordered self-defense kits for her and her sister.
This reaction stems from the rise of right-wing 'manosphere' influencers who have seized on Trump's win to amplify misogynistic content online.
A troubling trend is the appropriation of the pro-choice slogan "My body, my choice" into "Your body, my choice," a phrase that has spread rapidly online. Attributed to a post by far-right figure Nick Fuentes, it garnered 35 million views on its first day on X. The slogan has since appeared in middle schools, college campuses, and even on t-shirts — which were later removed by Amazon.
Online declarations calling to "Repeal the 19th" Amendment (which gave women the right to vote) have gained millions of views.
While Trump himself isn't directly amplifying this rhetoric, his campaign's focus on masculinity and repeated attacks on Kamala Harris's gender and race have contributed to the current climate. Dana Brown from the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics suggests that for some men, Trump's victory represents a chance to reclaim traditional gender roles they feel they're losing.
Despite the fear and disgust many women feel, some are fighting back. Perez and her peers are supporting each other, celebrating wins like female majorities in student government, and encouraging women to speak out against the misogynistic rhetoric. As Perez puts it, "I want to encourage my friends and the women in my life to use their voices to call out this rhetoric and to not let fear take over."
In the days following Donald Trump's presidential victory, an alarming surge in misogynistic rhetoric and threats against women has emerged online and in real life, according to a report from the Associated Press. Dubbed the 'emboldened manosphere', the trend has left many women feeling unsafe and compelled to take protective measures.
Sadie Perez, a 19-year-old political science student in Wisconsin profiled in AP's report, now carries pepper spray with her on campus. Her mother ordered self-defense kits for her and her sister.
This reaction stems from the rise of right-wing 'manosphere' influencers who have seized on Trump's win to amplify misogynistic content online.
A troubling trend is the appropriation of the pro-choice slogan "My body, my choice" into "Your body, my choice," a phrase that has spread rapidly online. Attributed to a post by far-right figure Nick Fuentes, it garnered 35 million views on its first day on X. The slogan has since appeared in middle schools, college campuses, and even on t-shirts — which were later removed by Amazon.
Online declarations calling to "Repeal the 19th" Amendment (which gave women the right to vote) have gained millions of views.
While Trump himself isn't directly amplifying this rhetoric, his campaign's focus on masculinity and repeated attacks on Kamala Harris's gender and race have contributed to the current climate. Dana Brown from the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics suggests that for some men, Trump's victory represents a chance to reclaim traditional gender roles they feel they're losing.
Despite the fear and disgust many women feel, some are fighting back. Perez and her peers are supporting each other, celebrating wins like female majorities in student government, and encouraging women to speak out against the misogynistic rhetoric. As Perez puts it, "I want to encourage my friends and the women in my life to use their voices to call out this rhetoric and to not let fear take over."
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