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AI incident: sexual content (May 2025)

2 news reports Synced from source · record last edited 7 Sep 2026
On this page 9 sections

In brief

An AI system built by Synthetic video generation technology developers, Synthetic media generation technology developers and 2 others and deployed by Synthetic media creators, Deepfake creators and 1 other allegedly harmed Women and girls, Women and 4 others.

Risk domain
Malicious Actors & Misuse Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
Occurred
Coverage
2 reportsMay 2026

What happened

In one of the first prosecutions under the TAKE IT DOWN Act, DOJ alleged that New Jersey defendant Cornelius Shannon published at least 360 albums of AI-generated deepfake pornography depicting about 90 women, including public figures, beginning during a charged period anchored to May 2025. Prosecutors said the content appeared on an adult image- and video-sharing platform and was viewed millions of times.

Editor's notes

See also Incident 1501. DOJ announced the Arturo Hernandez and Cornelius Shannon prosecutions together because the complaints were unsealed on the same day under the TAKE IT DOWN Act. Reporting suggests that the two men did not appear to be connected, and the complaints describe distinct alleged conduct, so the cases are treated as separate incident IDs. Timeline notes: (1) Reporting suggests an anchor date of 05/19/2025 for this incident ID. Between 05/2025 and 05/2026, prosecutors allege that Shannon published at least 360 albums depicting approximately 90 women. (2) 05/20/2026, the criminal complaint was unsealed and that Shannon was arrested in New Jersey. (3) The incident ID was created 05/22/2026.

Laws on record for this risk area

Policy angle: Classified under Malicious Actors & Misuse (Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation) in the MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy; 5 instruments on record cover this risk area.

Matched from the record's risk category and country to the instruments in effect recorded here: a law listed covers the area, which is not a finding that it applies to this incident. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).

News reports (2)

Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.

  1. Two Individuals Arrested for Publishing AI Deepfake Pornography In Violation Of TAKE IT DOWN Act
    justice.gov · John Marzulli, Denise Taylor, United States Department of Justice
  2. Two men charged with creating AI-generated porn under new law targeting ‘deepfakes’
    apnews.com · Jake Offenhartz

Who was involved

Alleged harmed party
Women and girls Women Victims of deepfake abuse Impersonated public figures Epistemic integrity Celebrities

AI systems implicated

Synthetic video generation technologySynthetic media generation technologySynthetic image generation technologyMedia-sharing platformsDeepfake technology

Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)

Causal entity
Human
Intent
Intentional
Timing
Post-deployment
Harm level
—
Sectors
—
Countries
—

Risk entries describing this failure mode

Entries from the MIT AI Risk Repository coded to subdomain 4.3.

  • Defamation/libel/slander

    "Defamation/libel/slander - Use of a technology system to create, facilitate or amplify false perception(s) about an individual, group, or organisation."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • IP/copyright loss

    "IP/copyright loss - Misuse or abuse of an individual or organisation’s intellectual property, including copyright, trademarks, and patents."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Cheating/plagiarism

    "Cheating/plagiarism - Use of another person’s or group’s words or ideas without consent and/or acknowledgement."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Dehumanisation/objectification

    "Dehumanisation/objectification - Use or misuse of a technology system to depict and/or treat people as not human, less than human, or as objects."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Impersonation/identity theft

    "Impersonation/identity theft - Theft of an individual, group or organisation’s identity by a third-party in order to defraud, mock or otherwise harm them."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Financial and business

    "Financial and Business - Use or misuse of a technology system in a manner that damages the financial interests of an individual or group, or which causes strategic, operational, legal or financial harm to a business or...

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Cybersecurity

    "LLMs may exacerbate cybersecurity risks in various ways (Newman, 2024). Firstly, LLMs may significantly amplify the effectiveness of deceptive operations aimed at tricking people into disclosing sensitive information or...

    Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models (Anwar2024)

  • Misinformation and Manipulation

    "Recent studies have demonstrated that LLMs can be exploited to craft deceptive narratives with levels of persuasiveness similar to human-generated content (Pan et al., 2023b; Spitale et al., 2023), to fabri- cate fake n...

    Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models (Anwar2024)

Incidents in the same risk subdomain

All incidents in this subdomain

Other incidents involving Synthetic media creators

Source record: incident #1500 on the AI Incident Database · all 2 reports