Megan Thee Stallion was the victim of a sexually explicit deepfake. This is a huge problem.

Megan Thee Stallion is the latest celebrity to fall victim to a sexually explicit deepfake created without her consent – ​​highlighting how widespread this form of abuse has become.

Deepfakes are videos that often use artificial intelligence to project a person’s face onto another body – real or fictional – to make it appear as if the person is performing the same actions as the person in the clip. These can include clips that make it appear as if a politician is giving an interview they never gave, to non-consensual, sexually explicit videos where people’s faces are swapped.

The latter has become an increasingly common form of sexual abuse as more apps emerge that allow people to create clips of others they know. As Cleo Abram noted in a 2020 Vox video, “The biggest threat posed by deepfakes is not politics. It’s pornography.”

Last week, a deepfake of Megan Thee Stallion containing sexually explicit images circulated on X. According to NBC News, the video was viewed tens of thousands of times and posted by multiple accounts. A spokesperson for X also told the network that it is “proactively removing this content now” because its rules “prohibit the sharing of non-consensual intimate media.”

“It’s really sick how y’all go out of their way to hurt me when you see me winning,” Megan Thee Stallion wrote in a statement on X on Saturday. “Y’all going too far, fake ass shit.”

Deepfakes are incredibly hurtful to those affected and difficult to fix because even if they are removed, the damage is already done. Following the X-post on Saturday, Megan Thee Stallion was seen emotional and crying at a concert while singing “Cobra,” a song that addresses issues related to mental health. (She did not address the topic at the show.)

Megan Thee Stallion is one of a growing list of prominent women who have been victims of such abuse – and who are speaking out against it. Her experience underscores the magnitude of the problem and the potential to harm even more people as the means to make it possible become more readily available.

Megan Thee Stallion’s experience shows how deepfakes have been weaponized in recent years, including against other celebrities such as Taylor Swift, but also against private individuals. As cybersecurity company DeepTrace found in 2019, 96 percent of deepfake videos on the internet were pornographic, and almost 100 percent of them featured women.

“Deepfake sex videos make people feel that their bodies do not belong to them. This can make it harder for them to stay online, get or keep a job, and feel safe,” said Danielle Citron, a law professor at Boston University, in the DeepTrace report.

Not only are these videos traumatic when they surface, but the impact can haunt women and affect their reputations and mental health for years. Such abuse, similar to so-called revenge porn – a form of abuse in which nude images of women are posted without their consent – is degrading and aims to take away their power. “Deepfake sexual abuse is often about silencing women who speak out,” Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University in the UK, told Glamour.

Megan Thee Stallion had previously condemned the actions of rapper Tory Lanez, who was convicted of shooting her in the foot, and in the years that followed, she endured numerous attacks from men who questioned her story and undermined her experiences.

As Vox’s Anna North reports, the proliferation of such deepfakes is only expected to increase as AI technology becomes more widespread and easier to use. In some cases, mobile apps have even allowed students to create sexually explicit deepfakes of their classmates without consent. Online developers are also now offering custom deepfakes for people who want to create such videos and images of famous celebrities or people they know.

One troubling aspect of these acts is the limited ability to take action against them. In the case of Megan Thee Stallion, X has been actively removing videos, although this has not always been the case for other prominent figures either, NBC News reports. Furthermore, North writes, the federal government’s efforts to pass a law banning such deepfakes are still ongoing, and it is urgent that tech companies be held more accountable to truly combat this problem.