Jacob Elordi targeted in Deepfake-X video allegedly showing the body of a minor

“Euphoria” and “Saltburn” actor Jacob Elordi is the latest celebrity to fall victim to unwitting, sexually explicit deepfakes. According to an NBC News search, posts on X (formerly Twitter) containing the deepfake video of Elordi have been viewed more than 3 million times since Monday evening.

The deepfakes of Elordi combine his face with a pornographic video of a male OnlyFans creator. The body in the deepfake does not match Elordi, who has a prominent birthmark on his chest. NBC News identified the deepfake in more than 16 posts on X. One of the posts has over 1.7 million views.

The OnlyFans creator featured in the original video has spoken out against the Elordi deepfake on his own X account, saying he was 17 when the video was recorded. In posts, he wrote “this is literally my video” and “deepfakes are getting scary.” He also responded to several posts featuring the deepfake, demanding they be taken down. NBC News confirmed he is currently 19 and lives in Brazil.

One of the 16 posts viewed by NBC had a content label that said, “Visibility Restricted: This post may violate X’s rules against abuse.” That post could not be linked to or shared, but still had 23,000 views.

Over the past year, a number of prominent women, including Taylor Swift, Megan Thee Stallion and numerous TikTok stars, have been featured in similar content on the platform. X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Deepfakes are generally deceptive digital media that are created or altered using either artificial intelligence or technology that can achieve a similar result. One of the most common forms of deepfakes are sexually explicit videos, where a person’s face is “swapped” into a pornographic video. Although federal and state laws have recently been passed in the US to combat them, the amount of the material online has exploded.

The emergence of user-friendly deepfake apps that have been promoted on social media platforms as being able to create non-consensual, sexually explicit deepfakes, as well as political deepfakes depicting election fraud, has raised concerns that the technology could be used to influence the 2024 election.

While non-consensual, sexually explicit deepfakes predominantly feature the faces of prominent women and teenagers, such materials also feature male celebrities such as Elordi. Representatives for Elordi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some of the posts containing the deepfake of Elordi portrayed the material as a “leak,” which is internet shorthand for real material posted without the person’s consent, or otherwise claimed to be the real Elordi. Other posts referred to the material as a deepfake.

As of April 2023, X prohibits the sharing of “synthetic, manipulated, or de-contextualized media that may deceive or confuse people and cause harm.” It also prohibits content that “sexualizes a person without their consent.” In previous statements to NBC News, X has removed deepfakes and said it does so proactively, though it has been unable to prevent distribution in cases like the Elordi deepfake.

In June, adult content creators told NBC News that it had become increasingly difficult for them to succeed on X as pornographic scams became rampant on the platform.