Imagine finding doctored images of yourself online, and then finding comments from netizens saying that you should expect it.
That was what Singaporean actress Eswari Gunasagar experienced recently. In a social media post on July 2, the 36-year-old Ah Girls Go Army (2022) actress said that a man had used AI to create a fake image of her and him at the beach.
She was wearing a bikini in that image, even though she has never uploaded pictures of herself wearing one before.
“Many people alerted me to this post,” Eswari said in the video. “I went to see the post, I reported the post, I even dropped the guy a message saying that ‘if you do not remove this post, I am going to report you to the police’.”
Eswari, whose acting credits also include TV series Mei (2024) and Provocative (2025), said the man did not reply to her message, and the post was removed later.
However, her father called her the next day and said one of his friends saw the same picture on the man’s profile. The man claimed that Eswari was his wife and said he wanted to file a personal protection order against her, claiming that she was bullying him.
“He even uploaded the picture and with the caption saying ‘I want to rape my wife’,” Eswari said, disclosing that her father was worried.
The actress, who married Shane Meyers in May, made a police report and took a screenshot of all the posts that the man had made.
“I posted it on my profile saying that, no, this is happening, I would really appreciate if you could report the profile,” she said. “And there were so many of you guys who helped me to report the profile, and less than three hours later, the entire profile was removed.”
The Straits Times did not find the doctored image and the man’s account during checks on the night of July 3, other than the screengrabs Eswari had earlier shared when calling the man out.
Eswari said what shocked her more than the fake image was some people’s reactions to the incident.
Someone had shared her post and wrote: “I bet she won’t be posting like this if someone like (Italian actor) Michele Morrone or (Indian actor) Hrithik Roshan did it. You’re a celebrity, what do you expect. LOL”
Eswari said the post was liked and “laughed at” by people, including women.
“A person is targeted with a fake AI-generated image, their privacy is violated, and instead of condemning that act, people choose to mock the victim,” she said. “That is everything that is wrong with our society.”
The actress said the issue was not just technology, but the lack of empathy, the ignorance and the willingness to excuse such harmful behaviour.
“The moment we start laughing at the victims, instead of standing up for them, we become part of the problem,” she said. “If we can’t show basic empathy when someone is violated, then honestly, we have a much bigger problem than AI.”
The Online Safety Commission (OSC) was recently established to provide victims of online harms in Singapore a dedicated and easily accessible avenue to seek timely redress.
For a start, the organisation deals with five of the most prevalent and serious online harms: intimate image abuse, image-based child abuse, doxing, online harassment and online stalking. Eight other types of online harms will be dealt with at a later stage. - The Straits Times/ANN
