BikiniOff is not a stunt

Just any photo and, once uploaded, the bot makes the clothes disappear. Using artificial intelligence it spits out nude images that were never taken. The app bikini off it’s free, accessible to all, and very dangerous. And the bot is just the latest tool in the web’s rotten factory that produces non-consensual material.

It has already spread to schools, the case of two boys who decided to virtually undress their classmates “as a joke” has turned the spotlight on theyet another distortion of the deepfake. In the last few months, in fact, the technology capable of creating false but realistic images has become the perfect tool for creating on the web pornographic material. The phenomenon has also attracted the attention of Child Guarantee of the Lazio Region, which has decided to organize meetings with parents to raise awareness on the subject.

The app that strips people

Bikinioff was born in France as an evolution of BeReal and then spread all over the world in 2022, recording record numbers of downloads among twenty-somethings. It is able to create fake but realistic photos and to access the app you don’t even need authentication, this means that anyone, even minors, can use it. And in fact Bikini Off has become popular right among the school desks, in the last period 27 offenses have been reported and two 14-year-old teenagers have been investigated for the production of child pornography. It happened in a middle school in the province of Rome, the two boys were accused of having modified five photos of classmates

and then shared them. They told the carabinieri “it’s just a joke”.

The app is simple and free. The first photo is free, to produce other deepfakes you have to buy credits by registering your credit card, or using Google Pay, payments through cryptocurrencies are also available. We tried it and found that the bot offers a series of subscriptions that allows you to access different subscriptions, ranging from 5 €to obtain 10 photosto 270to produce 600.

The intervention of the Child Ombudsman

In response to the phenomenon Monica Sansoni the Guarantor of Childhood of the Lazio Region, has decided to organize training meetings in schools, sports groups and parishes. The project “Parents at the center, adolescence mission” wants to raise awareness on the improper use of new technologies, because, as Sansoni explains, Bikini Off “it is not a simple stunt”. He also added that she receives at least two reports a week for child pornography images that are circulated by minors on the web.

The goal of the project is sensitize adults about the risks of the virtual world, especially on channels like Telegram where it is easy to find dark niches that generate harmful material in an uncontrolled way. In fact, on the web, kids always find new dens to experiment with, and as Sansoni explains: “While adults are still stuck on TikTok, kids are already beyond it”.

Bikini Off is not an isolated case

The deepfake phenomenon it has deep roots, in the last period, with the developments of artificial intelligence, it has become even easier to use, and the images and videos it creates are ultra-realistic. Bikini off is not the only case. In March FaceMegaan app that replaces faces and bodies using artificial intelligence, has launched a provocative advertising campaign, perhaps not realizing that its sponsorship is the best business card to be eradicated from every App Store.

In fact, for demonstration purposes, he uploaded 127 videos of Emma Watson and 74 of Scarlett Johansson in provocative attitudes on social media. Just download the photo of the face of the actress and apply it on the body of a pornstar. Et voilà, here is the perfect recipe to show a performing technology used in the worst possible way.

Deepfake Porn: A Growing Phenomenon

“Deepfake has become a technology to destroy women, especially in porn. There are many sites that replace people’s faces on the bodies of porn stars, it is humiliating and mortifying,” explained Yu Chunju, a Chinese artist who experiments with deepfake technologies in the artistic field, to Fanpage.it

The phenomenon has grown over the years. The analyst Genevieve Oh has in fact discovered that the number of porn videos Deepfake is almost doubled every year since 2018. February 2023 was the month that recorded the most deepfake porn produced and uploaded in one month.