Among the defendants was Ruben Andre Garcia, a producer and recruiter for GirlsDoPorn sentenced to 20 years in prison; Matthew Isaac Wolfe, who pleaded guilty to a “wide range of duties” at GirlsDoPorn, was, according to the Department of Justice sentenced to 14 years; was the cameraman Theodore Wilfred Gyi sentenced to four years; and GirlsDoPorn accountant Valorie Moser he pleaded guilty He was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and is awaiting sentencing. Finally, in March of this year, the alleged creator of GirlsDoPorn, Michael Pratt, was extradited from Spain to the United States for will hear charges related to the operation. He pleaded not guilty. In total, those involved in GirlsDoPorn were ordered to pay more than $35 million in damages.
Brian Holm, managing attorney at Holm Law Group and a longtime civil attorney for GirlsDoPorn survivors, confirmed that the videos posted on the imitation sexual abuse website were originally from GirlsDoPorn. These include, Holm says, survivors who were involved in lawsuits against GirlsDoPorn or Pornhub.
“It’s a real double blow to victims of human trafficking when their videos are used in this way,” says Holm, adding that these videos are the tip of the iceberg. “From what I saw on this site, I think the amount you sent me is 10 times higher there.”
Each of the 12 videos posted to the WIRED account has received up to 15,000 views, and several of them feature the “girlsdoporn.com” watermark. The account that posted these videos has a version of “GirlsDoPorn” as its username, and the title of the videos includes a sex trafficking site.
WIRED will not name a website that contains false content because of its role in spreading offensive content or because of its stars in the videos. This site is the largest of its kind, with tens of thousands of videos and millions of visitors. In April, the site blocked visitors from the UK after lawmakers in the country announced plans to make it a crime to create blatant imitation content without consent.
“Creators of sexually explicit deepfakes have no respect whatsoever for the women and girls who are victims of sex trafficking and are now further exploited as a result of this fake sexual exploitation,” says Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at the University of Durham, who works to prevent image abuse.
“This website actively shares footage of actual sexual assaults,” McGlynn says. “These are terrible acts that deliberately and knowingly cause life-threatening harm. The pursuit of profit and fueling the trade of non-consensual pornography knows no bounds. This shows contempt for the rights of women and girls.”
Neither the account posting the imitation GirlsDoPorn videos nor the site’s anonymous administrator responded to questions from WIRED.
In tardy March, another user of the site asked whether it was allowed to post GirlsDoPorn material, claiming it “made them feel sick.” They suggested that some people might not be familiar with GirlsDoPorn’s history, but pointed out: “It’s…one user is apparently doing this by promoting a rape site.” The moderator responded that he did not intend to remove the videos, but added that if there was a “list” of videos containing sex trafficking victims, they would notify site administrators to remove them.