Rise in deepfakes: DEEP in smut

Dangerous trend: It was reported last year that MCMC removed 1,225 postings of explicit content generated using AI as of Dec 1, a dramatic spike from 186 such cases just two years earlier in 2022. — FAIHAN GHANI/The Star

AS a professional cosplayer, Elyana Sparks (stage name) is used to posting photos of herself dressed up as various fictional characters for her 100,000-strong followers across her social media platforms.

But she never expected things to take a sinister turn, when a friend told her in January that they found smutty images of her being circulated online.