They say everything is bigger in Texas, and apparently this also includes deepfakes.
We are all familiar with deepfakes-type content, but just in case: A “deepfake” combines and superimposes existing images and videos of a person onto source images or videos using machine learning and AI. The result is a video or image that can depict a person saying or doing things that never actually happened — like fake news, hoaxes and doing porn.
Deepfakes are bad in of themselves, but apparently there’s always a next/worse level to explore. To wit, DallasNews.com recently reported that a 72-year-old man from Corpus Christi, TX is headed to prison after authorities found him in possession of tens of thousands of photos and videos that depicted child sexual exploitation.
In addition to the 31,000 pieces of illegal content, when he was arrested, Clifford Mecham Jr. (pictured) also possessed more than 1,700 videos that he had altered to create deepfakes-type content featuring the faces of children.
The Justice Department said that Mecham had taken images and videos of porn performers and replaced their faces with those of minor-aged persons. In many of the images, Mecham also morphed his face with the faces of the men performing in the scenes, thus making it look like he was engaging in the sexual acts depicted. These images showed Mecham’s splice with minor-aged teens and people even younger.
According to DallasNews’ report, Mecham told law enforcement he created the deepfakes content because he thought it was “cute.” He admitted to creating the images and said he knew who the children were and that he also knew they were minors. The notion that Mecham was somehow sourcing images from the internet or wherever is disturbing enough — the idea that these images depicted people he knew takes it to a whole other level.
Corpus Christi police learned about Mecham’s editing habit in August of 2018, when a computer repair technician reported seeing the altered images. Upon police search, five total computers were identified as containing this altered and/or illegal content. This introduces a spate of questions, including This guy knew how to edit like this? and Who the heck gets their computer “repaired” these days? Clearly though, we are not discussing a rational person.
A US district judge sentenced Mecham to 97 months in prison earlier this month. The judge stated that the community needs protection from Mecham, who apparently had no idea why what he did was wrong. Mecham is in custody and awaiting transfer to prison.
Gross.
Image via the Corpus Christi Police Department.
