{
  "id": 10984854,
  "title": "Internet Infrastructure Services Empower Deepfake Abuse, New Study Finds",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/30/internet-infrastructure-services-empower-deepfake-abuse-new-study",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-09-30T16:02:39.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "404 Media",
    "slug": "404-media",
    "url": "https://www.404media.co/deepfake-abuse-sites-infrastructure-providers-study/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A new study reveals how major internet infrastructure providers such as Cloudflare, Google, Namecheap, WordPress, and Protonmail facilitate the spread of abusive, sexually explicit deepfakes. The researchers, Hany Farid, Sophie Nightingale, and Sarah Morgan, identified 88 websites hosting non-consensual intimate imagery, predominantly featuring female celebrities, actresses, pop singers, K-pop idols, and women in politics or activism. Cloudflare, Google, and Namecheap emerged as the dominant infrastructure providers, each offering essential services like website hosting, content delivery, domain registration, content management systems, and mail servers. Despite clear prohibitions against illegal content in their terms of service, these companies continue to supply infrastructure that enables the proliferation of AI-generated non-consensual intimate imagery. Google stated that it prohibits such content across all its products and has strict policies to remove it. WordPress clarified that it's open-source software, not a hosting provider, and that controlling content on independently hosted sites is beyond its control. Farid noted that while WordPress.com is a hosting service, Automattic, its parent company, can cut off operators and that the software's distribution and security patches come from servers of WordPress.org.",
  "summary": "Cloudflare, Google, and Proton were among the \"dominant\" infrastructure providers to sites dedicated to hosting abusive content, the study found.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}