More laws were introduced this week to criminalise deepfakes. The distribution of these images was already illegal, but now they have criminalised creation of images too. It's the kind of slippery slope we saw with iioc. First distribution and production only were criminalised, but later on they added possession to the list.

I expect deepfakes will go the same way. The logic for extending the ban to possession, in the case of iioc, was that it reduces demand, so you could make the same argument for deepfakes too. We know that there are forums where people share these images and plenty of people sell the images too. 

There are important loopholes in the legislation at the moment. The prosecution must show an intent to cause harm, which could be tricky. But that requirement could be removed, if the legislation doesn't have the desired effect of eliminating the market for deepfakes. Since the law only applies to the UK and not other countries, it is not going to stop these websites from operating, but it will mean potentially another thing that the police can check for, when they are scanning somebodies devices.

Another interesting difference is that the penalty for creation of deepfakes is less than it is for distribution, while with iioc, production carries a heavier sentence than distribution.