Internet Infrastructure Services Empower Deepfake Abuse, New Study Finds
Researchers found Cloudflare, Google, Namecheap, WordPress, and Proton supporting 88 non-consensual AI imagery sites.
Hany Farid of Dartmouth and Lancaster researchers Sophie Nightingale and Sarah Morgan published “The Backbone of Abuse” in Stanford’s Journal of Online Trust and Safety. In six weeks they identified 400 URLs and 88 sites actively hosting non-consensual AI intimate imagery, mostly of women celebrities and public figures. Cloudflare dominated hosting, CDN, and DNS; Google supplied SSL certificates and advertising; Namecheap registered domains; WordPress was the main CMS; Proton provided mail. Google said it blocks monetization and offers removal, while WordPress.org said it is software rather than a host, a claim Farid disputed regarding Automattic.