Deepfake pornography and my experience of digital violation

Samantha Smith, Catholic Herald

Thursday, January 8, 2026

A Catholic writer describes how an artificial-intelligence program was used to doctor a photo of her. As she describes: “My clothes were digitally removed. My face was plastered into sexual situations I had no control over and no desire to be involved in. I remember looking at it and feeling exposed in a way that was difficult to explain to anyone who had not experienced it. It did not matter that the image was fake. The sense of violation was real.”