Brandon “Atrioc” Ewing: The Twitch streamer who accidentally revealed in January that he was watching explicit deepfake content with female streamers he’s friends with in real life. triggering a great controversy—He recently returned to the platform to update his fans.

Read more: The aftermath of the Twitch deepfake porn scandal

During his March 14 broadcast, which was mired in technical issues due to internet issues, Ewing claimed he has been working “pretty much every day” to help combat fake pornographic content since his rather “really terrible” apology video. , in which his wife screamed in the background and his chat overlay constantly scrolled through viewer comments on the screen.

Atrioc vows to fight deepfakes

Ewing said he has been working with “reporters, technologists, researchers, affected women” in the month and a half since his last broadcast. “A week after the event, the first thing I did was wire Morrison Rothman [an LA-based law firm] about $60,000 to cover any woman on Twitch who wanted to use her legal services for DMCA takedowns or reputation management,” he claimed, saying one of the streamers depicted in the fake content he was viewing, QTCinderella, had recommended the firm. to all female streamers affected by the Ewing deepfake incident.

morrison rothman Founding partner Ryan Morrison, known as the “gaming lawyer” on social media, confirmed this to my city via Twitter DM. “Atrioc sent a $60,000 advance to be used exclusively by women affected by deepfakes and similar issues,” she wrote, “[and that amount] goes a long manner with our rates for such services.”

Read more: Twitch Finally Addresses Deepfake Porn Scandal Over A Month Later

During yesterday’s rebroadcast, which was stopping and restarting periodically due to technology issues, Ewing also claimed he was contacted by Genevieve Oh, whom he described as “a leading researcher in the fight against deepfakes.” Ewing said Oh sent her a 25-page paper she had compiled on the technology behind deepfakes and how rapid advances in technology in recent years are contributing to their prevalence today.

my city he also received said document from Oh when the controversy began and can confirm that it contains the information that Ewing discusses in his transmission. She explains how just a few years ago, the technology required to create fake content required much more computing power than it does today. Now there are even phone apps that can make acceptable deepfakes, so content is proliferating on social media and the Internet in general.

Ewing thanked Oh for bringing it up to date faster than he could have done on his own, but said his initial reaction to the prevalence of this content and the inherent difficulty in removing it was depression. However, she said that she then shifted her focus, narrowing his reach so that he could concentrate on the things she could control. “Using Genevieve’s paper and my own research, I tried to find the ‘bright spots’ in the fight against this type of content,” she said. And according to him, there is a group of people who are “much better” at fighting fake content and getting it removed.

Remove unwanted content with ‘AI’

That group are the creators of OnlyFans. “They were way ahead of the curve on the best practices to combat this type of thing, and it’s because they have a direct financial incentive,” Ewing said. So, he began to investigate what OnlyFans creators use to remove illegally reproduced content. He eventually ended up contacting an employee of Justicean Ireland-based “AI-powered” DMCA takedown company that offers content creators a choice of service plans that cost between $99 and $549 per month.

Ceartas’ site claims it has a 98 percent success rate in helping content creators “recapture lost revenue by automatically finding, deindexing, and removing illegally hosted platforms and bad actors stealing and leaking their protected content.” by copyright.” Ceartas, Ewing said, is “basically a technology that uses bots and AI to combat bots and AI” that “automatically flags misuse of your image, dangerous keywords, and completes and sends DMCA notices” to its subscribers. OnlyFans has designated Ceartas as the Official Security Partner of OnlyFans, as stated in the OnlyFans Transparency Report February 2023.

Ewing said he wanted other content creators who needed assistance removing the DMCA to work with him and Ceartas to see how effective the service would be, but that he was initially unable to get other streamers to work with him, understandably.

But, Ewing claims, one of the Twitch creators portrayed in the fake content he was viewing on his infamous January stream, Maya Higa, allegedly responded to his apology and request to work together. Ewing said he and Higa later tested Ceartas and said they found it much more effective than the traditional manual method of paying a lawyer to submit DMCA takedown requests.

Higa, who Ewing says used the money he transferred to Morrison Rothman to perform takedowns, recorded just 51 successful content takedowns during the month of February. The Ceartas test, which Ewing said “takes a while to set up,” apparently resulted in 512 confirmed takedowns and over a thousand DMCA requests related to Higa’s content and likeness.

Read more: Twitch Streamer Pokimane Wants Tougher Laws on Revenge Porn

Ewing showed the results to QTCinderella, who agreed to test Ceartas herself, stating that her tests were even better. From there, Ewing said that popular streamers Pokimane and Amouranth agreed to get involved.

my city contacted the representatives of Maya Higa, QTCinderella, Pokimane and amoranto to confirm the details Ewing shared.

Twitch streamer Sweet Anita, who was also affected by the fake content, confirmed to my city via Discord DMs that she was not contacted by Ewing or anyone from Ceartas, but she did express interest in the service afterwards my city sent you a link to the site.

my city reached out to Ceartas and Ewing, but did not receive a response by time of publication.