WEBVTT - Searching for Mr. Deepfakes: Seeds of Change [Part 4] 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.519 Before we get started. This episode discusses sexual abuse in suicide. 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:06.440 Please take care while listening. 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:16.120 It was just one of the most painful and traumatizing, humiliating, 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:20.320 degrading experiences my life. 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:24.279 Paris Ultan was nineteen when an intimate private video of 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:27.840 herself was released to the world without her consent in 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:31.240 the gossip magazines. It was a scandal, but in reality 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:32.400 it was abuse. 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:37.280 It was like being digitally raped and having the whole 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:42.479 world watching it and laughing, and I just felt just 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:46.800 so ashamed when that shame should never been on me, 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:51.839 And yeah, that's something that I'll have to live with 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:54.560 for the rest of my life. 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.240 In two thousand and four, in the early days of 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:01.320 the Internet, Paris's one video was viewed millions of times. 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:06.080 The widespread distribution of that sexually explicit video was non consensual. 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.839 And today we're experiencing a new version of this reality, 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:12.679 except this time you don't even have to take a 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.080 real photo or a video with AI. 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.600 All you have to do is exist. 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:26.160 Now that it's happening today, and you don't even have 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:28.360 to know the person that can literally just take your 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:33.280 photo and just make it as just terrifying. 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.800 Once again, Paris's likeness is being used without her consent, 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.840 but this time it's AI generated and it's appearing on 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.240 sites like Mister Deep Fakes and beyond. 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:50.440 It's very triggering now to see it happening, even at 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:54.600 a larger scale, with strangers all around the world who 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:59.080 I've never even met, and there's a one hundred something 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:04.880 thousand deep fake images of me. It's just disgusting. And 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.120 what also hurts me so much is that these are 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.960 not real images, but people don't know that. People, if 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.239 they don't understand AI, they would just assume it's real. 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:20.360 And I've worked so hard just really changed that image 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:22.920 of me because it never should have been that. You know, 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.160 what happened with me was someone I was nineteen. I 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.240 was in a serious relationship. I trusted him, and that 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.520 was so long ago, and it's I feel like it's 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.920 something that's haunted me my whole life, so now for 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:39.800 it to be happening again, but on such a larger scale, 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:45.960 it's just it's so humiliated. That's why it's you know, 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:48.520 even though it's uncomfortable to talk about, you know, I'm 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.639 speaking out for all these other women and children who 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:54.680 are having to deal with this right now so that 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:56.600 they can have some justice. 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:01.000 Unfortunately, I'd seen this story before, the one where tech 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:03.880 moves fast, the laws haven't caught up, and women are 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.720 the first victims. What happened to Paris in the early 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.120 two thousands was a predictor of what would come and 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.120 now her deep fake abuse is symbolic of the reality 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.760 we live in today, and that's what brought us together. 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.880 I don't understand how it's legal for there's to be 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.799 all these apps that are coming up now and websites 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:25.119 where people can do this to others, because it could 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:30.400 really ruin someone's life and destroy their confidence, destroy their future. 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.360 I'm Laurie Siegel, and you're listening to Mostly Human, a 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.440 tech podcast through a human lens. This is searching for 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:39.040 Mister Deep Fakes Part four. 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:45.400 This one was okay. This is when we heard the. 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.640 Heartbeat, which, like that is so wild that at the 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:51.800 moment that's really cool. Yeah, that's my husband John. As 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.960 you can tell, something pretty big happened. A month after 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:57.720 we got back from finding the operator behind mister deep 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.360 Fakes in Canada, John and I found out we were 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.560 going to have a baby. The Journey to Stop Deep 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.360 Fake Abuse felt even more urgent now it was personal. 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.200 I realize that it's not enough to go find the guy. 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.440 We have to help people see the thing they're not 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.920 seeing yet. Politicians, folks who can move the needle. And 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:19.840 then I think, as a mom it just makes it like. 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:22.240 All of it just feels urgent. 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.520 Yeah, a win is like being able to not just 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:29.040 take down mister deep Fakes, but like fundamentally change, like 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:33.839 the like the process that enables these types of things 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:38.840 to exist. You know, something that really makes it so 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.960 other people have recourse if this happens to them. 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.760 You've got to remember you are putting blocks in the foundation. 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.680 I think it's really important to keep that perspective of 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:53.080 change because there's a lot of different ingredients and change. 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.360 There are seeds. There's the dirt, there's the water, there's 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.480 the sunshine, and I think what you're creating now is 0:04:59.520 --> 0:04:59.880 the seed. 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.840 After talking to David Does back in Canada, we had 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.000 a new resolve for this investigation. We came back with 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.559 this thought to create actual change, we had to cast 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.760 a wide net and talk to as many people as 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.200 possible about this. 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.440 This is round two of our investigation. Round one was 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:20.040 finding mister d Finks. 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.000 Round two is like, how do we actually create change. 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.160 We have like a whole little war room set up, 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:26.080 so we put. 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.560 Together are good guy hackers who helped us track mister 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:34.359 d Fikes. Now we're putting together essentially like a team 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:38.320 of policy folks, celebrities, you name it, folks who can 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.159 help us, like we think move the needle forward. 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:45.640 So it's legal action, legislative change, and cultural change, like 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.360 all working in concert, not just one. 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:49.359 But it's a big task. 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.679 My first step was Casey Mock, who at the time 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:56.080 was the senior policy director at the Center for Humane Technology. 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.360 This is set up to have that army of mister 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.040 d fix grow kind of automatically by default. 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:05.520 There's a pipeline. 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:10.160 Here where now you know, young men largely will be 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.000 given access to these newification apps. They'll be playing with it, 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:17.640 and you know, they make one deep fake of someone 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:19.360 that they know, someone of classmate. 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:19.320 And they're in. 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.240 They're in it, and they may try to figure out 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.720 ways that they can either do it themselves or monetize 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:27.480 it or whatever, and then they're like in the system. 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:29.240 They're a member of that army. And it seems like, 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.119 you know, the hosts of the website and the people 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.480 behind it are more than willing to train people up 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.840 to be able to do this themselves, right, to generate 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.240 their own content. And so it has this like flywheel 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.400 effect where it's if we do nothing right, that army 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:45.880 is just going to grow, right. 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:47.880 I think that's the fear right. 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.520 So it's like, how do we take all of the 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:53.960 stuff that we learn and actually create change? 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.200 And I think this is like what you've done your 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:57.800 whole career, right, which is. 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.320 Like take some of these like heartbreaking things, but also 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:04.320 helped push forward go behind closed doors in DC, like 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.160 talk to the right people to try to push forward policies. 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.440 You've been covering tech for more than a decade, and 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:14.360 like you've seen stuff that policy advocates have never seen. 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:18.080 Like you've had conversations that they haven't had access to, 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:22.520 So you have information that's very valuable to policymakers. 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:27.160 On the legislative side, there'd been some movement. In the 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.840 summer of twenty twenty four, two federal bills to Take 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.360 It Down Act and the Defiance Act were introduced. They 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.920 work toward different things, criminalizing the creation of AI generated 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.280 images on the one hand, and providing civil recourse for 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:42.200 victims on the other but. 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.560 This is not innovation. This is a twenty first century 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.320 version of sexual abuse and child sexual abuse. 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:51.800 But some weren't waiting for federal progress. 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:56.160 The San Francisco Attorney's Office filed an unprecedented case against 0:07:56.200 --> 0:08:00.760 sixteen neuification websites that were targeting everyday people. That case 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.720 was led by San Francisco City Attorney David Chu and 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:06.000 Chief Deputy City Attorney A von Meir. 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.720 We are trained as lawyers that there is a system 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:15.080 of justice and when something unlawful happens, or something unfair happens, 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.320 there's a remedy that you can be sought in our course. 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.640 As soon as we filed this lawsuit, I was contacted 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.880 by colleagues of mine from the California State legislature as 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.520 well as from other places around the country who are 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.880 interested in this space. It's not enough to pass a law. 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.680 You need to have the ability to enforce that law. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:35.320 And I think one thing that's clear is a lot 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:37.920 of these laws were passed with the intent of trying 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:43.720 to assist victims in vindicating their rights, but the victims 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:48.240 have found it to be incredibly difficult to get justice 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:52.400 for themselves and their situations, which is why we felt 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:54.200 so compelled to step in. 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.240 We are never going to be able in these kinds 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:00.559 of cases to sue everyone. It is a powerful whole tool, 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:05.280 but we need partners and we need to raise awareness. 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.360 What do you think needs to happen from a legal 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:13.160 standpoint to actually make it so we are safer online 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:14.680 in this kind of deep fake era. 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:19.840 Well, my position has always been that we have to 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.120 be holding the platforms responsible. 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.400 Kerry Goldberg is a lawyer who's been helping victims of 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:26.880 digital abuse for decades. 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:31.240 They are always going to be bad actors that pedal 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.440 in other people's nudity, whether that's deep fakes or revenge 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.880 porn or sextortion, and so yes, I want criminal laws 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:44.560 to punish the individual actors, but I also want I 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.199 want victims to be able to go after the platforms 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.720 that are accommodating these kinds of bad actors and are 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:53.160 like minting money off of it. 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.160 Our coalition was growing at home and abroad in the 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.120 winter of twenty twenty five, connected with partners at the 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:02.280 Home Office in the UK. 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:04.439 Thank you so much all for joining, and truly is 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.080 a really special group of expertise that we have today. 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.359 British policymakers had taken a strong lead on the issue, 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:15.400 announcing plans to criminalize sexually explicit defikes to the point 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.600 where mister Dee Fakes was now blocked in the country. 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.079 They thought to criminalize not just the dissemination of this 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.439 type of material, but also the creation of it. 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:31.120 Very illuminating information that Laurie and Nicole have been uncovering 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.360 through a multi year investigation. At this point into the 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:38.160 mister deep Fakes website, which as we all know, is 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.599 a very very pivotal force in the deep fake and 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:44.880 CIA HOWM landscape. 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.559 It felt like we had momentum, but we also felt 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.880 the urgency for legal, societal and for cultural change to 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.480 move even faster, because just as we had feared deep 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:59.600 fake abuse was spreading into more vulnerable places our schools, 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.160 now it was affecting the youngest generation coming of age 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:03.680 with Ai. 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:15.840 He's like, do you want to see the image? 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.640 Like very cautiously the way he spoke, like, do you 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.200 want to see the image of your daughter? 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.120 Nadia Kahn Roberts is in a small room and the 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.600 police station near her home in Miami, Florida, and A 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:33.440 detective is handing her a thick binder of images, and I. 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:34.920 Said, yes, I want to see it. 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.240 The detective opens the binder and Nadia feels an immediate 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:40.959 wave of nausea. 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:41.640 Like oh my god. 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:43.160 I started crying. 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:47.080 As Nadia's body is flooded with shock. The detective asks 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.320 for something nobody else had. 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:51.959 He looks at me in the eyes and he goes, 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:58.240 do you want to press charges? And I said, yes, absolutely, 0:11:58.640 --> 0:11:59.920 I want to press charges. 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:02.000 The nightmare for Nadia begins. 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.920 Right before Christmas break twenty twenty three, Nadia, a Spanish 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:08.640 teacher at a local high school, gets a panicked call 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:10.840 from her thirteen year old daughter in the middle of 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:11.200 the day. 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:13.600 She called me first. 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.400 When she was called down to the office, she was 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.240 crying and she says, I need you to come pick 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:19.880 me up right now. 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:20.720 I need to leave. 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.760 And I was like, okay, well I'm at work. She's like, 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.640 you don't understand. I need to leave. I saw a picture. 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:28.800 I saw a picture and then I'm very freaking out. 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.280 I'm like, what picture? What are you talking about? A 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:36.200 picture of me naked? And I'm like what, No, but 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.440 it's not really me. Mom, And she couldn't even really 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:42.360 piece stores together because she was having an anxiety attack. 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.959 Nadia drove down to the school and the story quickly unfolded. 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.840 Two boys at her daughter's middle school had been caught 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:52.840 exchanging AI generated nude photos of their female classmates. 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.679 I'm finding out that there's ten twelve. 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:59.360 Thirteenth, fourteen, fifteen, up to fifteen girls they did this too. 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:02.400 Then wait no, there was a teacher they did it 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:03.160 too as well. 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:05.079 Wait no, there's another, And I'm like. 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:09.800 Whoa more than a dozen girls at least two teachers. 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.079 Their images were run through an ai utification app by 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.800 two boys from well respected, hard working families in the community. 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.120 The school called the police and suspended the boys, unsure 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:22.800 of how to deal with something so new that many 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:23.920 of them had never even. 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:24.640 Heard of before. 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:27.760 After the Christmas break, the boys would return to the 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:29.600 classes with the girls they deep faked. 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.199 Nadia's daughter was panicked at the thought. 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:37.680 She's freaking out, like nobody wants to be in a 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:44.880 room with essentially this an abuser, albeit not physical, right, 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:46.680 but the facological abuse. 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:48.920 I mean, I think it is. 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.920 And I'm imagining myself right like having to face these 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:56.720 kids in the hallway. A lot of these girls have 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:57.719 classes with. 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:05.079 These kids, and that's when I really just was like no, no, no, no. 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:05.080 No no. 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:09.120 Nadia eventually went to the police station to see the images, 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.360 the big binder of images the boys had created of 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:16.400 their classmates and teachers, and she was shocked by how 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.080 accurate this fake image of her daughter looked. 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:25.920 The skin color and the skin tone matched her face. 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:31.440 Like ninety nine point nine percent, and her private parts 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:39.120 were accentuated like exaggerated, unrealistic, but it's still it was 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:44.360 my daughter's face on this body with the same skin 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.880 color tone that I got nauseous and wanted to vomit, 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:54.360 and I started crying because my kid had to see 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:59.480 it first alone, without the presence of her parents or 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:00.560 guardian with her. 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.040 The police told her this could be treated as a 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.520 sex crime child pornography. If they got enough of the 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:10.240 parents to press charges, they would arrest the boys. Nadia 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:12.280 spoke to other parents and one of the teachers who 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.280 had been deep faked. It wasn't an easy choice, but 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.760 eventually enough people were on board and the boys were arrested. 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.360 I remember when we were facing that decision, I felt 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:24.160 the gravity of it. 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.360 Luke is the thirteen year old girl's father. 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.520 It was a really big deal for us. You know, 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:33.360 these are thirteen year old boys, and I couldn't help 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.720 but think about the other side. They're getting, you know, 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:39.880 charged with a sex crime that could follow the rest 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:40.720 of their life. 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.680 So it was it was heavy, but we didn't hesitate. 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:44.880 We knew it was the right thing to do. 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.080 This was the first case of its kind in the 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.680 United States where charges were actually filed. But what was 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.120 painfully clear about this nightmare to Nadia Luke and others 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.440 was something else had to change. The cultural mindset around 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.040 creating set actually explicit deep fakes in the first place. 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.840 Kids teens, They needed to understand that this was wrong, 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:08.960 that this type of abuse. 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:11.600 Hurt and it caused real world harm. 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:14.320 Our children are all the front lines of the war 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:17.920 that we didn't even know anything about. 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:18.280 And we have to get in a fight. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.880 John and his wife Shannon understand the stakes now too. 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.480 They also have teenagers twin sixteen year olds, Palin and 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:26.880 Elijah or Eli. 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.480 She straight a student, wants to go to medical school. 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:33.000 Ali was our Tornado. 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:35.640 There's nothing common about the war now. 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:38.880 The family lives in a small country town in Kentucky. 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.200 In February twenty twenty five, Palin and Eli were looking 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.960 forward to prom Eli was about to start the spring 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.280 tennis season. He wanted to help the team go to 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:52.240 State this year. Everything seemed normal when Shannon and John 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.680 went to bed on February twenty seventh. 0:16:56.200 --> 0:17:00.160 And within an hour and a half, his sister and 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:01.960 woke us up and totus Eli was hurt. 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.560 Eli had died by suicide, and they had no clue. 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:14.359 Why how did a well adjusted teenager go from prepping 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.480 for tennis and prom to ending his own life. As 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.399 paramedics took Eli from his home, Shannon's eyes were drawn 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:25.600 to his phone. She went into his messages and found 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.119 a picture that looked like Eli's face. It was on 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.359 a naked body, but something looked a little bit off. 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:37.639 I guess was supposed to be Eli. It was Eli's features, 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:44.520 but it was like so white, I'm talking like a 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:45.600 piece of paper white. 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:49.480 Cops and soon the FBI went through the phone and 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:51.840 told the parents they believed it to be a case 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.720 of sextortion. In the rising tide of cybercrime, boys in 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:59.520 Eli's adrange were being targeted by scammers who traditionally posed 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:02.480 as female. Else they'd get boys to send nude photos 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.160 of themselves and then they blackmail them with those photos. 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.840 But AI turbocharges that abuse. The victim no longer needs 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.879 to be tricked into sending any intimate photo of themselves. 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.439 Scammers can now send an AI generated picture to a 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:20.200 victim and threaten to ruin their lives if they don't 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.440 pay up. And this is what Eli's parents believe happened. 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.639 The scammers wanted three thousand dollars. Eli could only send fifty. 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.680 I know him from top to bottom. There's nothing about 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.639 that picture that matched. But you can't tell that to 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.120 his friends at school. You can't tell that to his principal. 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:41.959 They don't know. Imagine being a sixteen year old child 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:47.080 and they're getting correct by multiple people. Texts after text 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.760 after message after message of that's not enough money. You 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.320 better give us our money. You don't give us our money. 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:55.560 Your parents are going to see this, Your grandparents are 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:59.200 going to see your friends at school, your principal, everybody's 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.040 going to see this. And that's the pressure that Eli 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:02.520 was under. 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:12.359 Fifty dollars for my son's life, fifty dollars. It was 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:14.159 all who has worked to these people. 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.520 In early twenty twenty five, it felt like we actually 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:32.399 had momentum. 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:33.560 Pressure was mounting. 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.199 We just kept pushing out our story and talking to 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:39.359 the media and to politicians and to leaders in the space. 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:44.080 And then in February twenty twenty five, I had my son, Charlie. 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.159 I talked about this period with my producers, Roxy and Nicole, 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.800 and I remember I was like, all, right, away, message 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:56.280 is going up, like Matt leave Yay, you can breathe. 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.800 And then something happened in May of twenty twenty five, 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.360 and that something was kind of the thing that we've 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:05.280 been waiting on for a long time. 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:06.880 Do y'all remember that day? 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.760 I do. I think you called like a group FaceTime situation. 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:12.639 Uh. 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:17.320 And I was like probably walking Leo in like a 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:19.720 baby carrier on me, and it was raining, and I 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.080 was holding the umbrella and trying to like hold the phone, 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:25.160 but you said that it was really important, so we 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:25.800 had to get on. 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.000 It was a zoom call with Roxy, me, Roxy's husband Tony, 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:32.520 and Nicole just wanted to give like a teeny bit 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:34.200 of breaking news. 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.040 Mister deep Wakes is officially shut down. 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:39.040 The whole website. 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:43.360 Whole website, the whole website is gone, like the when 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:46.679 I think it was late last night, I think this 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:50.920 is it's gone for good. I like generally like gone 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:52.359 for good. I don't think it's coming back. 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:59.399 Wow, seven years, thousands of victims, over one point five 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:03.640 billion in videos, but finally the largest deep fake porn 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:07.359 site on the Internet was gone. Do you remember the 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:08.880 message on the site? 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:10.080 It said like it. 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:12.359 Was like a critical service provider has been lost. All 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:15.280 the data has been lost. This is permanent, and like 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.200 anyone who creates another site their copycats. 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:21.840 And so a couple of things had happened ahead of that, right, 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.080 beginning with like, let's go back a year when we 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:27.720 literally I believe we were the first people to show 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.520 up at his door at his workplace to show that 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.200 he could no longer do this anonymously. Right, I think 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.760 that was an important data point. Laws started getting passed. 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:40.800 They basically cut off access to the UK because it 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.119 would be breaking the law. Now, all of a sudden, 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.359 like that puts pressure on payment providers who are no 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.160 longer available on mister deep fakes. All of a sudden, 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:52.560 it puts pressure on advertisers, It puts pressure on tech platforms, 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.639 Google deranked the site. So the first thing you saw 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.879 wasn't a sexually explicit deep fake of yourself. 0:21:58.520 --> 0:21:59.560 When you googled your name. 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:01.920 And then the week that it went down to take 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.920 it down at pass, which was the first federal law 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:10.160 the targeting deep fakes. And then the CBC, another news organization, 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.240 had done an investigation into David Doe and the man 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:16.199 behind mister deep fakes. So if I could look at 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:20.639