Actress Scarlett Johansson called the internet a “lawless abyss” in an interview with the Washington Post over the weekend about the proliferation of deep-fake pornography.

Said to be the highest-paid female actress in Hollywood, Johansson (pictured) talked about the difficulty of fighting against people superimposing stars’ faces into porn scenes, something of which she has been a victim several times. “I think it’s a useless pursuit, legally, mostly because the internet is a vast wormhole of darkness that eats itself,” she said.

Although companies such as Reddit have banned deep-fakes appearing on the platform, the movies still show up on the internet and it seems there is nothing the law can do to stop that happening. In an interview, Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, said removal of the films would be a violation of the First Amendment.

As a reminder, that amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Such videos are not difficult to make nowadays thanks to artificial-intelligence software that is widely available and a number of “how to” videos available on YouTube and other platforms. Celebrity porn, albeit fake, is a popular search term according to PornHub ‘s 2017 statistics. Some of the popular names range from YouTubers to sports stars to singers and actresses.

“It’s just a matter of time before any one person is targeted,” said Johansson, whose face has been used in a number of graphic sex scenes just in the last year. One video of her, which was said to be leaked but wasn’t, was watched 1.5 million times.

“Nothing can stop someone from cutting and pasting my image or anyone else’s onto a different body and making it look as eerily realistic as desired,” she said, calling the internet a “lawless abyss.”

And it’s not just celebs who are seeing themselves involved in porn. Now the general public is hiring “creators” who will make videos from anyone’s photos. This means anyone with a grudge can send a creator an image and in a few days a former partner or colleague could be the star in a porn video. This is an advanced form of cyberbullying, usually targeting women.

“For folks who don’t have a high profile, or don’t have any profile at all, this can hurt your job prospects, your interpersonal relationships, your reputation, your mental health,” feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian told the Times. Sarkeesian was also a victim of a deep-fake video last year.

Photo: Athena LeTrelle/Flickr