Mr. Deepfakes, once the largest and most notorious site for nonconsensual deepfake pornography, has officially shut down. Known for hosting AI-generated explicit content without the consent of those depicted, the platform is no longer accessible.

Visitors to the site are now met with a blunt message: “A critical service provider has terminated service permanently. Data loss has made it impossible to continue operation.” The site’s videos and forums have already been removed. It also clearly states that it will not be relaunching, and warns that any site claiming otherwise is fake. The domain will expire soon, and the message is set to disappear within a week.

Details remain unclear about which service provider ended support or what kind of data was lost. The identity of the person behind the site has never been publicly confirmed, although a 2024 investigation by German newspaper Der Spiegel suggested it was run by a 36-year-old Toronto man working in a hospital.

“This is certainly a win for victims of non-consensual intimate imagery, but it’s long overdue and still not enough,” said Hany Farid, a professor at UC Berkeley and an expert on digital image manipulation. He added, “The technology, financial, and advertising services that continue to profit from and enable sites like Mr. Deepfakes need to take more responsibility. This is a start, but we shouldn’t stop here.”

Deepfake porn first gained attention in 2017, when a Reddit user with the pseudonym “deepfakes” began sharing videos that used AI to swap the faces of female celebrities into existing porn scenes. As platforms like Reddit and Pornhub banned this content, Mr. Deepfakes quickly rose to prominence by providing a space for it to continue.

Unlike mainstream adult sites, Mr. Deepfakes allowed users to upload deepfake content, commission videos from creators, and connect directly for custom orders. These transactions often took place using cryptocurrency. The site’s forums also became a hub for creators to share tools, techniques, and facial datasets, many of which targeted real women without their knowledge or permission.

One of the most advanced open-source tools for creating deepfakes, DeepFaceLab, was heavily developed in these forums. A research paper initially credited Mr. Deepfakes (listed as “Mr. Dpfks”) for hosting the community that contributed to its development, but that reference was removed following media attention.

Although the website is gone, its impact still lingers. Many members of the community have migrated to apps like Telegram, where similar activity continues. The tools and methods popularized by Mr. Deepfakes are now widespread online, and even major companies like Apple and Google have struggled to prevent their presence on their platforms. Social media sites like Instagram have also faced challenges in stopping these tools from being promoted or advertised.

The closure of Mr. Deepfakes is an important moment, but it’s not the end of the story. It highlights how much work remains in the fight to protect people — especially women — from being exploited by emerging technologies that still operate largely unchecked.