Manhattan DA Seizes 12 Celebrity Deepfake Domains

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, led by District Attorney Alvin Bragg, announced the seizure of 12 domains dedicated to sharing and selling nonconsensual explicit deepfake videos. The action, executed under New York criminal procedure laws via State Supreme Court warrants, represents one of the largest coordinated takedowns of explicit deepfake platforms since the technology emerged in late 2017. Visitors to the unnamed websites are now greeted with law enforcement seizure notices, and researchers report the domains remain inaccessible even when using virtual private networks (VPNs).

According to prosecutors, the seized platforms targeted approximately 1,200 individuals, overwhelmingly women, including actors, musicians, athletes, social media influencers, and political figures. The websites, some operating since 2018, attracted millions of views by hosting manipulated videos that grafted victims' faces onto existing pornographic footage. Research from the American Sunlight Project revealed that the platforms featured dedicated profiles for elected officials, including 16 US politicians, two UK politicians, and 56 European politicians, with many videos originating from the defunct platform MrDeepFakes.

For AI developers, trust and safety teams, and legal practitioners, this enforcement action signals a shift toward aggressive domestic legal intervention against synthetic nonconsensual intimate imagery. While federal legislation like the US Take It Down Act has slowly evolved to address these harms, this local prosecution demonstrates that existing state-level criminal laws can successfully dismantle hosting infrastructures. However, experts like Leonie Oehmig of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue emphasize that stopping deepfake abuse requires targeting the entire pipeline, including creation tools, hosting providers, and payment processors.