Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, victim of deep fake porn images, seeks damages: report

Rome: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been asked to testify in court in the trial of two men who are accused of making deep fake pornographic images using her face and posting them online, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Meloni, who is listed as an injured party in the Sassari, Sardinia trial, is seeking €100,000 ($165,000) in damages and will donate any award to an Interior Ministry fund for women victims of domestic violence, ANSA quoted her attorney Maria Giulia Marongiu as saying on Tuesday.

According to ANSA, Italy’s postal police in 2020 identified the 73-year-old father and 40-year-old son who allegedly uploaded the deep fake images to a US-based porn site by tracing the data to one of their mobile phones. In the images, her face is superimposed on the bodies of adult film actresses, The Telegraph, London, reported.

At the time Meloni was not prime minister, but head of her Brothers of Italy party.

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Both men are accused of defamation, BBC has reported. Some defamation cases in Italian law can be criminal.

Marongiu has said any award from the trial, scheduled for July 2, would be “symbolic”.

She said she hoped Meloni’s decision to pursue the case would send a message to women who are victim of such abuses of power to not be afraid to file complaints, ANSA said.

Deep fakes are realistic-looking and sounding representations that have not occurred in real life. They have been used in anything from US political posts, to financial scams and extortion attempts.