Streamer who incited Twitch deepfake porn scandal returns

polygon.com:

Atrioc, whose real name is Brandon Ewing, is back on Twitch. He had taken a roughly month-and-a-half break from the streaming platform after inadvertently sharing his Chrome browser tabs on a livestream, and revealing that he visited a website that sold explicit, non-consensual deepfakes — specifically ones in which other streamers’ likenesses were edited onto pornstars’ bodies.

Screenshots of the website were circulated widely by those who had been viewing Ewing’s livestream. And the streamers whose likenesses appeared on the deepfake website, including QTCinderella, Maya Higa, Sweet Anita, and Pokimane — some of whom are friends with Ewing — had to deal with the fallout. In the following weeks, the women who were affected were subjected to harassment, as explicit images of their likenesses circulated across the internet.

This past Tuesday, Ewing went on a stream to give an update on the “actions” he has been taking in the aftermath of his deepfake scandal. The stream experienced significant technical disruptions that made it cut in and out as Ewing spoke. He said he was working with “reporters, technologists, researchers, women affected, Twitch themselves — I’m trying to work with everyone I can.”

Ewing also apologized for his initial tearful apology video which he had posted on Jan. 30, and which has since been removed from his account. In that initial apology video, he claimed that he had navigated to the website as a result of clicking on a PornHub ad out of “morbid curiosity.” On Jan. 31, Ewing had also shared a statement on Twitter via TwitLonger in which he apologized to Maya and Pokimane, and said he was working with QTCinderella and law firm Morrison Rothman to take down the deepfake website. (The website