{"id":645556,"date":"2026-10-05T15:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T15:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/645556\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T15:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T15:20:09","slug":"deepfake-ireland-on-virgin-media-grainne-seoiges-distress-in-this-grim-film-is-palpable-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/645556\/","title":{"rendered":"Deepfake Ireland on Virgin Media: Gr\u00e1inne Seoige\u2019s distress in this grim film is palpable \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gr\u00e1inne Seoige\u2019s<\/a> public persona is that of the understated and often sombre newsreader \u2013 giving us the facts and just the facts. So it is shocking to see her on the brink of tears as she recalls how she became the victim of deepfake pornography created using AI<\/a> while canvassing for election in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is so sickening that someone could do that to you,\u201d she explains in Deepfake Ireland. (Virgin Media One, Monday, 9pm) This grim film sees Seoige revisiting her own experience of AI-generated deepfake images while looking at the wider issue of how misogyny is embedded in the source code of the internet. How it has become, in essence, a holy treatise of tech bro-dom that has brought immense pain to people around the world.<\/p>\n

Seoige\u2019s distress as she recalls the incident makes for uncomfortable viewing and \u2013 as is only proper given the subject matter \u2013 the entire documentary has a skin-crawling quality: what a horrible world it is out there.<\/p>\n

Of course, \u201cout there\u201d in this context means the internet and the hellscape of social media, where more than 95 per cent of fake images are of women. \u201cWe\u2019re there for their entertainment \u2013 there are no consequences,\u201d says model and presenter Maria McGuigan, who, like Seoige, was targeted by deepfakers.<\/p>\n

Victims are often extorted by their harassers \u2013 which can add to their trauma, says poet Darragh Fleming. Recalling his experience of being blackmailed over intimate images, he says that, to teenagers, \u201cthings like this are world-ending\u201d. \u201cI was blackmailed for nude images of myself \u2013 the stats around suicide linked to this, especially among teenagers, are really scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seoige believes that, in her case, the image was \u201cpolitically motivated\u201d because it surfaced at a time when she was standing for election for Fianna F\u00e1il in Galway West<\/a>, and the action was intended to diminish and humiliate her in the eyes of voters. There was, she says, a perception that she was \u201ca celebrity candidate \u2013 lightweight, ill-qualified to stand… this was done for a very specific reason\u201d.<\/p>\n

Since then she has had nightmares in which faceless men attack her. Her experiences echo those of secondary school student Isabella, who, at age 15, was blackmailed with deepfake images and had dreams in which faceless men assaulted her. \u201cIt completely destabilises our sense of safety in the world,\u201d says Seoige.<\/p>\n

But her nightmare is not over. She meets \u017dilvinas Padolskas of Dublin-based technology company Ceartas, where she discovers that further images taken from her Instagram account have been manipulated by deepfake software. This is news to Seoige, who is understandably appalled.<\/p>\n

The EU has announced a ban on AI \u201cnudifier\u201d apps that create non-consensual intimate imagery, to take effect from December 2026. But Seoige wonders if this will meaningfully improve the situation \u2013 changing the law is well and good, but how do you enforce the regulations?<\/p>\n

She\u2019s not sure that this will be possible. \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely disgusting,\u201d she says. \u201cIt could not be more personal \u2013 it\u2019s all about control over women.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gr\u00e1inne Seoige\u2019s public persona is that of the understated and often sombre newsreader \u2013 giving us the facts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[218,93,87670,61,60,58,907],"class_list":["post-645556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-entertainment","tag-grainne-seoige","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-social-media","tag-virgin-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}