Another Body: Unsettling Doc on Deepfake Porn Needs to Probe Further

By Kim Hughes

Rating: C+

With every technological advance comes commensurate drawbacks, where innovations are used not for the betterment of society, as presumably intended, but deployed nefariously. The documentary Another Body explores one of those unsettling drawbacks: so-called deepfake pornography.

Not to be confused with revenge porn — another insidious 21st century development disproportionately targeting women — deepfake porn happens when tech-savvy users scrape images of faces from actual Facebook and Instagram accounts, then post those faces onto porn performers in action using sophisticated editing software. When those altered videos hit user-uploaded porn sites, who but the victim knows the difference?

And as these videos are disseminated and shared online, the victims’ friends, family, employers, and neighbours are left to wonder if they are real. The victim, meanwhile, must try to figure out who would do such a horrible thing and why. Also, whether the deepfake videos are simply the first in what may be an escalating series of attacks against them. Victims’ worlds inevitable, necessarily, shrink as paranoia takes hold.

It's also more widespread than we may think. According to Another Body, “deepfakes are doubling every six months. Researchers predict there will be over 5.2 million in 2024. Ninety percent are nonconsensual porn of women.”

Another Body follows one such case where two American female engineering students were “cast” in deepfake pornography by a needy onetime classmate who sought revenge when the women attempted to set boundaries.

The film follows Taylor as she discovers the videos and, to her alarm, that her attacker has included all manner of personal information — her name, hometown, alma mater — to allow viewers to successfully track her down online and harass her. In a weird paradox, Taylor is thrust into a rarefied orbit also occupied by top-tier celebrities who, evidently, are also routinely “cast” in deepfake porn.

When Taylor discovers another classmate, Julia, has also been targeted, the two join forces to try and deduce who in their orbit was a common acquaintance with a grudge and enough technological know-how (and free time) to create and widely post the fakes.

The wider the pair cast the net, the more victims they uncover. The police don’t have the incentive or resources to help, and the sites hosting the videos are presumably making heaps of money too fast to care. Indeed, a startling stat presented by the film is that one popular deepfake porn site receives 14 million hits a month. Laws are not currently in place in the U.S. or elsewhere to effectively address this growing issue.

Another Body, which uses illustrations and actors to protect the victims’ identities, does a good job of explaining the phenomenon and capturing its subjects’ ballooning anxieties. It does a less good job of contextualizing how deepfake porn can and does impact people over the long-term, or how those without the benefit of being tech-savvy, 20-something engineering students could possibly hope to track down perpetrators leveraging an arsenal of online tricks to cover their tracks.

As well, there is no voice from the porn industry or the sites hosting porn to argue for or against greater legislative regulation. Ditto the police, politicians, judges, or other stakeholders who might impact the future of deepfake porn investigation and prosecution.

The closest we get is a Zoom call between Taylor and lawyer and victims’ rights advocate Adam Dodge. The film’s view is simply too narrow to be comprehensive on such a startling and potentially life-altering/life-ending subject. That said, it’s a chilling surface look into yet another unanticipated side effect of our ostensibly great wired society.

Another Body. Directed by Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn. Written by Sophie Compton, Reuben Hamlyn, and Isabel Freeman. In theatres November 10.