The melting pot of trouble that is AI Face Swap technology never sleeps, and only pretends to have become an obedient little puppy. Countless small controversies continue to appear almost daily, although the magnitude and the severity have drastically fallen off. Don't be made a silly billy; the topic of AI as a tool won't shake off its coat of legal encounters for a long while. We have put together a small list of some of the most recent Deepfake and Face Swap events that stand out as the most significant or as the newest of the new. Admittedly, we might even go a few years back from the very beginning because the lifespan of Face Swap has not been too long. Us being the plebian English speakers means that we could only find sources in the one petty language we understood.
Dawn Of Deepfakes In 2017
You might not know this, but the term Deepfake was made a stable by a Redditor who made a subreddit titled Deepfakes. It was an NSFW board where users could share their Deepfake pornography using the open-source software provided by the subreddit owner. This part of Reddit quickly gained notoriety, which ultimately led to it being deleted. But the damage has already been done, and in 2018, large platforms for technology started implementing ways to combat Deepfake content (which had evolved rapidly within a short span). This ultimately led to 2019, when multiple countries started taking the issues seriously, including the United States of America. This chain of events, which started as a gathering of ill-meaning hobbyists, is why Face Swap and Deepfaks hold a heavy burden upon their shoulders and why the laws are becoming stricter.
Zao In 2019, China
On the other side of the glove, an unassuming and rather cute AI Video Face Swap app named Zao made its debut in 2019 in the small country of China. This app quickly gained fame for its complex AI feature that allowed millions of users to stick their faces onto bite-sized clips from movies, GIFs, anime, and more. As it later turned out, Zao was the biggest data thief to rival even Google. Anyone who used Zao was signing off more data and more rights than what they would expect. The data extortion was so heavy that Zao had to end over to the pressure and revise its policy to lessen the accusation. Still, this abuse of the AI platform ultimately led to China rolling out its 2023 law to ensure deep synthesis providers don't breach privacy laws.
Reface Class Action Lawsuit In 2023, California
Sometime in April of 2023, something, a Face Swap app named Reface had fallen under a Lawsuit As instigated by a celebrity. The person rolling the lawsuit was Kyland Young, a finalist from a TV show called Big Brother. He had accused the app of illegally using its likeness without consent. Since Reface offered his likeness from various scenes and allowed or even encouraged users to "become him," Reface was, in fact, exploiting his likeness for commercial purposes or even advertising. The number of these images and clips was allegedly enough to satisfy Rule 23’s numerosity requirement. The owners of Reface could not shake off Kyland Young's accusation. In the past, lawsuits over intellectual property rights were on the rarer end, but Young's situation showed that generative AI had great potential for major breaches.
Reface Technologies vs. Business Analytics In 2023, Russia
Later the same year, on the 30th of November, the Moscow City Arbitration Court held a court between the AI Deepfake company "Reface Technologies" and a software company named "Business Analytics." As the very long and tedious story goes, the latter of the two parties had taken/downloaded a Deepfake video featuring Keanu Reeves without permission from "Reface Technologies." The court had come to two conclusions through this fiasco. First, AI Deepfakes and Face Swaps are pretty much processing tools and editors, and not something that creates new content. But also, a video that has been made with Deepfake can be protected under copyright laws, meaning that not everyone can use it. This small ruling could potentially snowball into a basis for new laws, but for now, all we know is that "Business Analytics" had to pay a monetary fee.
President Donald Trump Deefake In 2025, USA
The world's favorite political figure is no stranger to controversies, and he often takes them with surprising grace and humor. Deepfakes and Face Swaps of him are common online, and Mr. President no doubt wouldn't want it any other way. Among countless meems, one stands out as the most significant. It's a Deepfake of President Donald Trump licking and kissing two left feet of Elon Musk with the title "Long live the real king." Notably, this is just one of many political ways to express dissatisfaction with Donald Trump, but it doubles as a political mockery and almost partially a propaganda piece, if we can even call it that. Deepfakes and how they alter information have become a core way for protests on the internet to manifest, and this is no doubt only a beginning.
The Flow Of Time
Big and small changes happen every day in the world, and a decent chunk of them involve AI. Placing every piece of controversy on one page will be a tough bargain, but we hope that our straightforward timeline can paint a picture. Face Swap and Deepfake laws and questions have evolved incrementally over many years, each issue arising once glaring problems involving AI have been made clear - from protecting user privacy rights, to withholding intellectual property rights and even acknowledging a certain ownership right of those who create Deepakes and Face Swap content. The AI software technology has made leaps and bounds from the countless hobbyist and their drive to create memes or something less savory. Today, AI technology has become a common way of communicating political stances as well as nuanced commentary. No doubt, there will be even more controversies to cover very soon.
