German developer Pia Scholz battles AI deepfake harassment after award win

German News Magazine Der Spiegel Reports on Serious Allegations Against Christian Ulmen by Ex-Wife Collien Fernandes

Der Spiegel has published a report detailing grave accusations made by presenter and actress Collien Fernandes against her ex-husband, actor Christian Ulmen. According to the magazine, preliminary investigations are underway in Spain, focusing on allegations of digital violence and the use of fake online profiles. Ulmen did not respond to Spiegel's inquiries; he remains presumed innocent under the law.

A New Wave of Systemic Gender-Based Violence Dominates Headlines

Surveys suggest that hundreds of thousands of people—including Pia Scholz—have already fallen victim to manipulated pornographic content or non-consensual nude images.

"At first, I felt utter powerlessness. Then came this wave of disgust. I felt stripped bare, exposed, and humiliated." Scholz has found herself the subject of AI-generated deepfake sex videos, her face superimposed into violent, sexualized scenarios online: beaten, sobbing, racialized, naked. She receives bomb threats, rape threats, kidnapping threats, and death threats. Fake letters, generated by AI, are sent in her name. Her supposed crime? Daring, as a woman, to take up space in public discourse.

Scholz was just 25 when she first saw herself in a deepfake porn video. At the time, she was a gamer and influencer. On Twitch, where she goes by the handle Shurjoka, she had amassed 330,000 subscribers over a decade of streaming strategy games. She leveraged her platform for political activism, raising awareness about queer-feminist issues, far-right extremism, and poverty.

In 2023—partly in recognition of her advocacy—she was awarded the German Computer Game Award, the gaming industry's most prestigious honor. "That's when the manosphere lost it," Scholz recalls. The harassment escalated further when streamer Scurrows, a self-proclaimed follower of misogynist influencer Andrew Tate, falsely claimed that Scholz had accused him of sexual harassment to ruin his career.

The Campaign Rages On

Three years later, the campaign against Scholz—now 28—shows no signs of abating. Some of her tormentors organize in the publicly accessible Telegram group "Shurjoka Game Chat," which counts around 80 men among its members. "They're trying to find out where I live, where I go, what I do," she says.

Our publication has reviewed the chat logs, which reveal the sharing of AI-generated porn featuring Scholz, coordinated doxxing—the systematic release of her private information—and discussions on how to build bombs, including plans to detonate one at the stable where her horse is kept.

The group also prepares "swatting" attacks—hoax emergency calls reporting fake crimes like hostage situations or bomb threats to lure armed police to her home.

Deepfakes Are Easier Than Ever to Produce

"They've systematically destroyed my career," Scholz says. Swatting incidents have targeted not only her residence and her family in Austria but also businesses she partnered with. As an influencer, those collaborations were her livelihood. Faced with relentless threats, she stopped accepting new opportunities.

What drives these men? "They don't want sexual gratification. They just want to torment and abuse women," Scholz believes. AI pornography, she argues, isn't about the desire to see women naked—it's about degradation through forced undressing and sexualization. "This is about power and control over women, especially those who are politically active and voice their opinions."

Digital sexual violence isn't new, Scholz notes. "What's new is the sheer scale and quality of these images," making it nearly impossible to distinguish fakes from real footage.

Hacktivist Steps In

With the help of hacktivist Ornella Al-Lami—known online as Nella—Scholz identified her harassers, "naively assuming the police wouldn't act because they couldn't find the perpetrators." That assumption proved wrong. "The authorities are failing systematically."

She reported the Telegram group to the authorities in Brandenburg—where she was living at the time—two and a half years ago, submitting a file of screenshots as evidence. Despite the group sharing swastikas, Hitler-glorifying content, and members calling themselves names like "Remigrator" or "Herr Adolf Hitler," prosecutors ruled that the offense was not politically motivated. The case file was passed around for months between agencies—from the police to the state criminal investigation office and then to the criminal police. Eventually, a patrol officer had her read aloud the group's sexualized fantasies of violence at the station so they could be typed up.

High Number of Unreported Cases

It remains unclear how many people in Germany have fallen victim to deepfakes. Since deepfake pornography is not classified as a distinct criminal offense, official crime statistics offer no meaningful data. According to a dark-field study by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, only 2.4 percent of women affected by digital violence file a police report.

Victims Suffer Lifelong Consequences

Pia Scholz has been battling post-traumatic stress disorder since the events of the past three years. "Once you've been through all the pain and trauma, you reach a stage of acceptance," she says. "Eventually, you just laugh—because you can't spend all day crying. The whole thing is completely fucked up."