A recent study spanning the 27 countries of the European Union has revealed a concerning disparity in how female and male parliamentarians are represented in online content involving pornographic deepfakes. According to the research conducted by Agora Digitale Transformation, a German think tank focused on digital issues, one in 14 female parliamentarians is associated with such content, compared to just one in 500 male parliamentarians. The study was reviewed by the Radio France Verification Agency and involved searching the names of 5,872 EU parliamentarians across 160 websites known for hosting or enabling the creation of sexualized forgeries. Researchers found that 147 elected officials were linked to these contents in some way, and the issue spans across the entire political spectrum, from the left to the right. In France, at least 17 female deputies were found to be affected by this phenomenon. Four of them were directly represented in sexualized content, while the others had their names appearing in searches or on websites that connect their photos to tools used for generating such images. Benjamin Shultz, an associate researcher at Agora Digitale Transformation, noted that although France has relatively strong laws against these practices, some deputies are still represented in such content, and the sites distributing them remain online. The study does not claim that current laws are ineffective, but it highlights challenges in their enforcement, including the difficulty of shutting down sites that operate outside of Europe and use infrastructure like American servers for hosting or domain registration. The researchers identified a previously underreported phenomenon they called "gateways" or "passageways." These are websites that appear to be personal profiles of public figures, complete with biographies and official photos. While no explicit deepfake images are hosted on these pages, they often include links to applications that allow users to generate fake nudity using artificial intelligence or to swap faces with others. These pages are likened to "self-assembly kits" for creating deepfakes. From a legal standpoint, this may not be illegal since the sites themselves do not host or produce the images—users generate them independently. The researchers argue that the fight against deepfake pornography must focus on the tools used to create such content rather than just the content itself. They suggest removing tools that allow the automatic generation of fake nudity or face swaps. They also highlight another gap in the current approach: search engines. Even if content is removed from the site hosting it, traces can still remain online for months. The researchers found evidence of sites that had been taken down by authorities but still appeared in search results. They emphasize that search engines like Google have a responsibility to limit the visibility of such content. The study's findings may significantly underestimate the actual scale of the problem, as the researchers themselves admit. They only examined 160 websites and did not include social networks, forums, or platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and its AI, Grok. Their goal was to raise awareness rather than to catalog all victims. The study serves as a warning signal about the growing issue of deepfake pornography and the challenges in addressing it through current legal and technological measures.