Real Talk

Every Parent’s Nightmare: Their Child Becoming a “Deepfake” Victim

by Kevyn Gohu
September 11, 2025

Angel Aquino, also known as content creator Queen Hera, reveals that her daughter has become a victim of Deepfake

Technology, although it makes life easier, can also quickly become a tool of abuse. In a hearing, content creator Queen Hera (AKA Angel Aquino) revealed that her daughter had become a victim of Deepfake — an AI-based tool that can generate videos and images through its audio-video editing features. While some have used it for fun and memes, others have used it for more sinister motives.

Sinister motives include child pornography and even sex videos wherein the figures used, despite never having any physical contact with the creators or the characters in the video, are shown together.

Angel Aquino, also known as content creator Queen Hera, reveals that her daughter has become a victim of Deepfake — Photo from Senator Risa Hontiveros FB

The horror of finding out

No parent wants to imagine Queen Hera’s horror when someone slipped her a direct message (DM) that they saw her child’s photo on the dark web. The photo, based on a reel from the hearing posted on Senator Risa’s Hontiveros’ page, was being sold for PHP1,500 or 26USD. The photo was so heartbreaking to look at that she could do nothing but cry.

“It was my child’s face photoshopped onto the private parts of a man,” she shares in Tagalog.

However, she doesn’t intend to let the one who did that to her child get away. Angel pleads her case to Senator Risa Hontiveros, who is also the head of the Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality. She shares that the possibility of them getting a hold of her child’s photo must’ve been from her posts. Most of them are family-friendly such as her and her baby interacting with their pet cat.

Since then, she’s made a new account—one that shows no traces of her baby.

Dear parents, be careful of what you post

When parents don’t post about their children, it’s not always because they’re being stingy and private about details. It’s because of horror stories like these. Cybercrimes are not easy to track, especially when there are so many technologies like VPN or apps that allow people to bounce their IP address around.

Even though efforts have been made, cybercrimes are often done quickly and cause exponential damage to the individual. It’s not easy to take back or remedy, especially when it gets out there as a Deepfake. Here are some things parents can do to protect their kids from Deepfakes:

Make photos of your kids only visible to those on your friends list. If posting on Instagram, cover your kids’ faces or blur them out.
Have the kids pose sideways without showing much of their eyes. It’ll be harder to reconstruct their face.
Don’t post photos of the kids unless they’re much older already.

Most of the time, it’s younger kids who are victims of Deepfakes. Photos of them circulate, and nobody even knows how they leaked out. While we love celebrating our kids’ wins, please do so judiciously and with vigilance. We never know who’s out there.