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“Excluding the fake photo itself — because it would remain under seal — there is nothing inherently stigmatizing about disclosing the fact that a deepfake image of the South Carolina Doe was created without disclosing the photo itself,” the attorneys wrote in one of their May 15 filings. “As a result, this case simply does not involve the types of privacy interests traditionally recognized as requiring pseudonymization.”
Neither xAI nor the lawyers representing the company responded to WIRED’s request for comment on the case.
Civil cases in which people are required to file a lawsuit using their real names can lead to lawsuits being dropped, creating an “unacceptable and unfair” situation, says Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who specializes in addressing digital abuse. “Forcing plaintiffs in privacy cases to sue in their own names does little for judicial transparency and prevents a lot of litigation,” Citron tells WIRED.
All four pseudonym claimants in the case, according to their legal filings on May 29, would consider withdrawing from the proceedings if their names had to be revealed. In these latest filings, the claimants’ attorneys He says xAI’s request should be denied, adding that the case concerns a “highly personal and embarrassing deepfake depicting Plaintiffs that was disseminated without their consent.”
The South Carolina Doe described how she found the alleged deepfake of her “stripped down to a revealing bikini” online, and said how her body appears “in a way that I will never share publicly.” They claim they were worried about what employers or colleagues would think if they saw the photo, and feared they would be targeted further online. “I was also overcome with disgust at the thought of what the person who asked Grok to create the deepfake was doing with the image,” they wrote.
“If I were forced to publicly reveal my name as part of this case, I would fear that those who support Elon Musk, his companies, and Grok, who I have observed being vocal online, will find my name in the public record, publish it, attack me, and retaliate against me by creating additional and more extreme fake images of me,” the filing says.
Similar statements from other alleged deepfake victims describe experiencing “severe emotional distress” and embarrassment and shock upon seeing images created without their consent. On a large scale, other victims of Deep sexual abuse and Non-consensual images They described the feeling in similar ways.
One of the men, called the New Jersey Doe in the lawsuit, says they saw people on X using Grok to create sexual images and posted a request that Grok “not create images of me without my consent.” The next day, court records say, he discovered two fake photos of himself, including one that depicted him “spreading his cheeks.” He says he believed the letter to Grok asking him not to create fake photos of himself “drew the attention of online trolls to my account who were using Grok to harass and cause distress.”
