A dozen websites built on nonconsensual sexual deepfakes went dark this week, replaced by seizure notices naming New York State. The Manhattan district attorney’s office announced the action on September 14 and said roughly 1,200 people had been depicted across the sites, most of them women.
Prosecutors call it the widest takedown they have carried out against this class of site. District attorney Alvin Bragg said the material follows victims through their working and private lives, and asked anyone affected to approach his office’s cybercrime bureau. Nobody has been charged so far; investigators are still tracing both the operators and the people who uploaded clips.
The legal footing was a warrant from a New York State Supreme Court under state criminal procedure law, reinforced by the federal Take It Down Act, which lets authorities pursue and seize sites that publish intimate images without consent. Seized-domain notices began replacing homepages days before the announcement.
Much of the content was not new. Researchers say the seized domains largely recycled videos from MrDeepFakes, a platform that went offline after journalists identified its operators. Elected officials had profiles on at least two of the sites, and the American Sunlight Project counts 56 European politicians across the wider network. One researcher called the operation proof that enforcement works even where laws differ across borders, while noting that creation tools, hosting and payment systems all still need attention.
