Speaker 1: Before we get started.
Speaker 2: This episode contains talk of sexual abuse and sexual assault.
Speaker 2: Please take care while listening.
Speaker 3: What was so demoralizing was feeling that I had no agency,
Speaker 3: I had no power, and if it can happen to me,
Speaker 3: it can happen to anybody else.
Speaker 2: Free Sunshine Smith is a local meteorologist in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 2: She's been in the business for fifteen years, first in
Speaker 2: Saint Louis, then Nashville, bringing the daily weather to her
Speaker 2: town and becoming someone her community can count on.
Speaker 3: Having been a meteorologist here for nine years, I have
Speaker 3: a really good reputation with the community, and I have
Speaker 3: a lot of trust in this community.
Speaker 1: Bree's an active member of the community too.
Speaker 2: Her kids go to school there, she's in parent organizations,
Speaker 2: and she's on the board of several nonprofits. She goes
Speaker 2: to the local events, and she's developed this trusted reputation
Speaker 2: for quite literally being the calm in the storm. But
Speaker 2: then in October twenty twenty, something happened to shake that foundation.
Speaker 2: It all started when of you were reached out to
Speaker 2: Bree and said he'd been getting direct messages from an
Speaker 2: account that claimed to be her.
Speaker 3: So I wrote him back and I said, nope, not me.
Speaker 3: I never direct messaged you. Please report and block it.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry that happened to you. And then he wrote
Speaker 3: me again, like the next day, he said, well, I
Speaker 3: assume it was your husband because they had pictures that
Speaker 3: I only your husband would have And I said, nope,
Speaker 3: not me. Again, report and block, and then he wrote
Speaker 3: me back again and full disclosure. His emails were getting
Speaker 3: a little weirder with time, Like when he wrote me
Speaker 3: the third time, he was like, I was so excited
Speaker 3: because I've always had a crush on you. But he
Speaker 3: went ahead and wrote me for the third or fourth
Speaker 3: time and said, I grabbed screen grabs of my conversation
Speaker 3: with the impostor and I wanted you to see them.
Speaker 3: And in those screen grabs he had been chatting with
Speaker 3: this imposter via Signal.
Speaker 2: Signal is an encrypted messaging app focused on privacy and security.
Speaker 3: In those screen grabs were two images where my face
Speaker 3: had been placed on someone else's semi nude body. And
Speaker 3: there was one deep fake video that was a video
Speaker 3: I had shot at work that someone manipulated to making
Speaker 3: it look like I was saying, no, it's me, it's
Speaker 3: really bree. You can believe it. It's me, Yes, dear,
Speaker 3: it is me.
Speaker 1: It is really me.
Speaker 3: I hope this video proved to you it is the
Speaker 3: smith you are chatting to. And also I will appreciate
Speaker 3: if things are kept within us. So it was like
Speaker 3: a proof of identity video with these two pictures, and
Speaker 3: it was just awful when I saw it. I mean,
Speaker 3: just you can give them the weather lady never in
Speaker 3: a million years. So I went to my employer. At
Speaker 3: that point, I brought it to leadership's attention and I
Speaker 3: was like, look, I don't know what to do, Like
Speaker 3: this has crossed a line. This is not just a
Speaker 3: spam account. Something something awful is happening, and they said
Speaker 3: it's not illegal, there's nothing we can do. Since then,
Speaker 3: there have been dozens, if not hundreds of additional imposter
Speaker 3: accounts that have come up, I mean ten in the
Speaker 3: last seven days.
Speaker 2: Someone pretending to be bre online is creating fake social
Speaker 2: media accounts and targeting people who comment on her real
Speaker 2: social media posts. They're finding people who trust and even
Speaker 2: admire Breed from her time on the news and chatting
Speaker 2: with friends and fans. The impostor gets people to download
Speaker 2: another app where they manipulate that trust and try to
Speaker 2: convince people to send them money in exchange for things
Speaker 2: like fanclub perks and sometimes for something more.
Speaker 3: The one in October, the gentleman or the viewer said,
Speaker 3: you know, they were promising sexual favors and asked me
Speaker 3: to forward money for the comrade.
Speaker 2: Hotel breed, like so many of the victims that we
Speaker 2: talked to, tries to investigate her own abuse. She tries
Speaker 2: to track down the many impostor breeds, but what she
Speaker 2: finds is that it's impossible to keep up with.
Speaker 3: There's so many. But at least when I could catch them,
Speaker 3: I could report and block the page. When these imposters
Speaker 3: start direct messaging people saying, hey, it's Bree, I need
Speaker 3: your help. Can you come chat with me over on
Speaker 3: this private app, I can't intercept that. I'm just a
Speaker 3: meteorologist trying to be my own kind of investigative journalist here.
Speaker 3: Just this last weekend, someone on TikTok told me that
Speaker 3: there was a fake TikTok account and that TikTok account
Speaker 3: asked them to chat on Google Chat. There's just so
Speaker 3: many layers to how nefarious this is. Like the gentleman
Speaker 3: on TikTok, said that the message that came to him
Speaker 3: from the fake account was like, Hey, I don't know
Speaker 3: who to go to. My husband and I just separated.
Speaker 3: I really need some help, like domestically, I don't feel safe.
Speaker 3: And so then you get these people in the community.
Speaker 3: They're like, oh my god, Bree, what do you need?
Speaker 3: And so they, you know, the introt the first ask
Speaker 3: is a can you help me? I need help? And
Speaker 3: because this community knows me and.
Speaker 1: Trusts me, they're like, yeah, we'll help you, Bree.
Speaker 3: What do you need? So it's really.
Speaker 2: Dastardly Rhe's identity is stolen from her and weaponized against her.
Speaker 2: The extortionists are preying on the trust and reputation that
Speaker 2: she's built, and they're using sexually explicit y figs for
Speaker 2: a financial gain, and the reality of the situation takes
Speaker 2: a toll on her.
Speaker 3: For the first couple months after this happened, like I
Speaker 3: was I was unwell, I was emotionally like just it
Speaker 3: was so the paranoia and like anytime I did anything online,
Speaker 3: I was like, is this going to be distorted? Like
Speaker 3: disgusting form of identity theft? I mean, that's really what
Speaker 3: it is. It's stealing someone's identity. It's stealing their good name,
Speaker 3: it's distorting it and making it into something really vile
Speaker 3: and really vulnerable. And then it's attacking the very community
Speaker 3: that I that I've tried to protect for nine years.
Speaker 3: I mean, going through my own personal humiliation, being scared
Speaker 3: that my kids might see it. You know, my kids
Speaker 3: don't have funs, but their friends at school do. Like
Speaker 3: what if they were at school someday and someone's like, oh,
Speaker 3: look at your mom, and it's like, my god, I
Speaker 3: don't want my kids to be traumatized by that, or
Speaker 3: if someone would target my kids because they're my kids.
Speaker 3: My guiding principle through that whole first three or four months,
Speaker 3: which were really dark, I would just tell myself over
Speaker 3: and over again, remember this so you can help somebody else. Hey,
Speaker 3: remember this so you can help somebody else.
Speaker 1: Talking debris.
Speaker 2: This is the spread of sexually explicit deep fakes in
Speaker 2: real time. This type of abuse isn't limited to sites
Speaker 2: like mister deep Fakes. It's infiltrated mainstream social media and
Speaker 2: platforms across the Internet, praying on people's desires, and it
Speaker 2: won't stop. It'll keep taking down unsuspecting people, threatening trusted
Speaker 2: relationships and destabilizing communities.
Speaker 3: What was so demoralizing was feeling that I had no agency,
Speaker 3: I had no power, There were no tangible physical steps
Speaker 3: I could do. It just was very isolating and just
Speaker 3: caused my mental health to go into such a deep
Speaker 3: dark place. And if it can happen to me, it
Speaker 3: can happen to anybody else.
Speaker 2: I'm Laurie Siegel and this is Mostly Human, a tech
Speaker 2: podcast through a human lens. You're listening to part three
Speaker 2: of our four part series searching for Mister deep Fakes.
Speaker 1: So breaking news, mister deep Fakes is down. I know,
Speaker 1: plot twist. I'm talking to Roxy Hunt.
Speaker 2: She's a part of my team helping to find the
Speaker 2: anonymous man behind mister Deep Fakes, the world's largest deep
Speaker 2: fake pornography site. We'd gotten a tip from someone in
Speaker 2: the Netherlands who said that he believed a Canadian man
Speaker 2: named David Doe is mister deep Fakes. Me and my
Speaker 2: team spent three days traveling across the Toronto, Ontario area
Speaker 2: searching for David Doe. We spoke to a lot of
Speaker 2: people who knew him, and we gathered a ton of
Speaker 2: clues while we were out there. It just felt like
Speaker 2: we were so close, but we had yet to get
Speaker 2: to him in the real world.
Speaker 1: Is it working for you?
Speaker 3: No, it's like it won't even like pretend to load.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Same.
Speaker 2: And now the mister d fake site is down.
Speaker 3: What do you think? Why do you think it's down?
Speaker 2: I mean, like the timing is suspicious, right. We go
Speaker 2: out there, we try to track him down, we talk
Speaker 2: to his family, we start closing in on his friends.
Speaker 1: A day later, the site is down.
Speaker 2: Maybe he thinks if he shuts it down for a minute,
Speaker 2: we're going to stop looking.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't stop, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, by the way, great, I'm happy it's down
Speaker 2: at least temporarily, but like, yeah, I still believe that
Speaker 2: there needs to be some accountability, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean we made an impact on him in some way.
Speaker 4: And sure enough, about twenty hours after it went down,
Speaker 4: it came back up.
Speaker 2: This wasn't the first time this has happened. We noticed
Speaker 2: a pattern. The site would go down for a day
Speaker 2: or so, but then it would come back up and
Speaker 2: it would be even more secure than it was before.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like all of a sudden, mister deep Fakes
Speaker 2: realized that the site was doing wrong.
Speaker 1: Actually it was the opposite.
Speaker 2: The site blackouts were likely maintenance periods to switch servers
Speaker 2: or to protect the contents in the community. Here's my producer,
Speaker 2: Nicole Bouchet.
Speaker 4: Again, they kind of moved all of the bad stuff
Speaker 4: behind registration and also disabled registration. So like everything in
Speaker 4: the forums that was talking about tutorials, guides, the deep
Speaker 4: fake face sets, the majority of that now were put
Speaker 4: kind of behind, like you had the log in, and
Speaker 4: they actually then closed log in.
Speaker 2: And I think that was like eye opening to me,
Speaker 2: like no, no, no, the threat of exposure isn't making
Speaker 2: you not want to do this. It's making you want
Speaker 2: to build up a fortress so you can continue to
Speaker 2: do this and get away with it.
Speaker 4: It definitely felt related to the fact that journalists were
Speaker 4: reaching out and asking questions. I don't think it was
Speaker 4: a coincidence that we had gone out there and three
Speaker 4: days later the site was shut down, even temporarily.
Speaker 2: So the site might have fortified itself, but so did we.
Speaker 4: You know, it had been five days from between when
Speaker 4: we got the tip and we went out there, so
Speaker 4: now we were really like, okay, let's settle in, let's
Speaker 4: dig deep on both the real world information we have
Speaker 4: and these online clues to try to build a better
Speaker 4: sense of who mister deep Fakes is and also get
Speaker 4: closer to the real person.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hi, how's it going good?
Speaker 3: How are you?
Speaker 2: I know it seems like very cryptic, so I appreciate
Speaker 2: you calling me back. I made my way through a
Speaker 2: list of contacts and Nicole and I had compiled people
Speaker 2: from all different parts of David Doe's life, and in
Speaker 2: one email I got confirmation, Holy shit, Hi, okay, I
Speaker 2: just have to tell you really quick. Their parents because
Speaker 2: tell me. I immediately got a response, thank you for
Speaker 2: your email. I'm away on parental leave, please reach out,
Speaker 2: and then gave me two names.
Speaker 1: So there we go.
Speaker 2: When I saw the car seat in the back of
Speaker 2: the red Mitsubishi in the driveway of David Doe's childhood home,
Speaker 2: it had all just been speculation, but now we had
Speaker 2: a definitive answer.
Speaker 1: Mister deep Fakes is a dad.
Speaker 2: And I have to say this was a complicated revelation
Speaker 2: for our team for so many personal reasons. My husband
Speaker 2: and I wanted to start a family, and roxy our
Speaker 2: producer was about to have a baby.
Speaker 5: I was pretty far along in my pregnancy. I was
Speaker 5: about to be sending out of office responses saying I'm
Speaker 5: on parental leave. To to think about the mindset that
Speaker 5: they him and his wife would be in at that
Speaker 5: moment is insane. They're they're dealing with a newborn. They're
Speaker 5: not sleeping, They're going through it all. They're bringing a
Speaker 5: new person into the world.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, David Doe's website was violating people every day.
Speaker 1: It was hard to negotiate.
Speaker 2: The main objective of this research period was tracking David
Speaker 2: Doe down.
Speaker 1: We wanted to try to find him in the real world.
Speaker 2: One of the biggest leads from our search was his
Speaker 2: name on the Official Registry of Pharmacists, which listed him
Speaker 2: as working at a hospital in Markham. So he might
Speaker 2: work in this Toronto suburb. But did he live here too?
Speaker 1: And are you and Markham?
Speaker 6: I'm just outside of Markham I grew up.
Speaker 2: I mean, would you have any idea if they just
Speaker 2: if they still live nearby or anything like that.
Speaker 3: I don't know where they live, sorry, but they.
Speaker 2: Are based in like Markham as far as you're, as
Speaker 2: far as you know, and they are kind of out
Speaker 2: and about in Markham.
Speaker 4: As far as I know, Like like I said, I
Speaker 4: haven't been in contact with them, but I don't know if.
Speaker 2: He's Yeah, but as these conversations went on, I came
Speaker 2: away with something else, a clear picture of who David
Speaker 2: Doe is, or at least how he presents himself in
Speaker 2: the real world. I think we saw that you guys
Speaker 2: went to pharmacy school together and maybe connected on like
Speaker 2: a social network or something like that.
Speaker 1: So I do know David.
Speaker 3: I'm not personally in contact with him, but I do
Speaker 3: like he has friends with some of my friends.
Speaker 1: What's the family like, Oh, just see you know, they.
Speaker 6: Were just very respectful people.
Speaker 2: She's rated and.
Speaker 3: She's very sparky, cares a sort of person.
Speaker 4: He's a very kind person, like I would never ever
Speaker 4: ever expect anything bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all these phone calls are so important, Like we
Speaker 2: are beginning to paint an even fuller picture of the nuance,
Speaker 2: which I think is becoming more and more important because
Speaker 2: we're like, how does someone like this do this online?
Speaker 4: You were having these real world conversations on the one
Speaker 4: hand that made you go is this really him? On
Speaker 4: the other hand, the digital like footprint that I was
Speaker 4: digging into, like in this sort of digital underworld that
Speaker 4: we now had access to with all of his aliases
Speaker 4: and usernames connected to him. It was kind of doing
Speaker 4: the opposite. It was making it more and more clear
Speaker 4: that this was the person who had created mister deep fakes.
Speaker 2: This deeper level of access we had the online workings
Speaker 2: of David Doe and mister deep fakes. It showed us,
Speaker 2: almost step by step, someone willfully building out the site
Speaker 2: that did so much harm. We had known, for example,
Speaker 2: that there was a link between Reddit banning deep fake
Speaker 2: pornography in twenty eighteen and the emergence of mister deep Fakes,
Speaker 2: but now we could see it happening in real time.
Speaker 2: On February third, twenty eighteen, three notable things happen. A
Speaker 2: BBC article reports that Reddit is considering action against the
Speaker 2: deep fake trend because it was non consensual. That very
Speaker 2: same day, the original domain name of mister deep Fakes
Speaker 2: dpfks dot com is registered, and on a site called
Speaker 2: black hat World Forum, a thread emerges around the potential
Speaker 2: Reddit band news.
Speaker 6: This is one risky way to get traffic. I see
Speaker 6: a new porn method here. I see lots of earning
Speaker 6: potential if done right.
Speaker 2: On February seventh, the reddit band goes into effect. A
Speaker 2: few days later, the username connected to David Doe responds
Speaker 2: to that thread. He was advertising his new site.
Speaker 6: Anyone working on projects involving this deep fake Niche I
Speaker 6: have a streaming platform and forum up and running and
Speaker 6: want to grow it with someone. Let me know if
Speaker 6: you're interested.
Speaker 2: The same username starts new threads to recruit and attract
Speaker 2: people to his site.
Speaker 6: Looking for someone to upload short adult video clips to
Speaker 6: my site. There may be one hundred clips to be uploaded.
Speaker 6: Pa me with a price. Anyone active in the deep
Speaker 6: fakes community. It's currently fragmented and I want to rebuild
Speaker 6: the community. A project already have a working product, also
Speaker 6: looking for content creators. Let me know. Maybe to rebuild
Speaker 6: you should explain what it is and get some new
Speaker 6: members to join. Someone on Reddit released an app to
Speaker 6: face swap anyone. The community started making celebrity fake porn.
Speaker 6: Shortly after this was made public, all the related subreddits
Speaker 6: were banned. It's basically a program that uses AI to
Speaker 6: stitch one face onto another, termed deep fake. You heard
Speaker 6: the man, Let's rebuild this community.
Speaker 1: He saw a market opportunity.
Speaker 2: Essentially, It's likely it's like this was growing very popular
Speaker 2: on Reddit, and then all of a sudden, Reddit shuts
Speaker 2: it down because they think that this is wrong.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, we have.
Speaker 2: This username that's associated with David Dough that we know
Speaker 2: because of this dossier that Geordie helped put together. Watching
Speaker 2: this guy not just build it, but talk about creating
Speaker 2: community traffic optimization, monetize like monetization, like improving SEO. It
Speaker 2: seems as though the David Doe did not view himself
Speaker 2: as just like, oh, I just love porn, this is
Speaker 2: a hobby. He looked at himself as a builder who
Speaker 2: was taking advantage of a market opportunity. Add the advances
Speaker 2: in artificial intelligence and what happened in twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: with chat GPT helping make this mainstream, and we are
Speaker 2: seeing a wave that nobody realizes like we're already caught
Speaker 2: up in it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think we'd had our suspicions before,
Speaker 4: but I think it's really rare to actually get to
Speaker 4: like peel back that current, and that's what we were
Speaker 4: able to do with this. And what's interesting is he
Speaker 4: does there. He has over five hundred messages on black
Speaker 4: hat World that spend much before twenty eighteen, and in
Speaker 4: it he's talking about wanting to find a niche, wanting
Speaker 4: to find like the site or what thing that he
Speaker 4: would build.
Speaker 2: Even as we learned more about David Doe, the guy
Speaker 2: that was working in a hospital who was helping people,
Speaker 2: we also learned more about the site. From the beginning,
Speaker 2: it had been created to take advantage of a market
Speaker 2: opportunity aimed at non consensual abuse, to quote bring the
Speaker 2: community back together. After Reddit band the channel, it felt
Speaker 2: like we were looking at two different people, the one
Speaker 2: online and the one offline, and that discrepancy just kept widening.
Speaker 6: Best way to monetize an adult tube site right now?
Speaker 6: I have revshare banner ads.
Speaker 2: Here's brillier, I love play for.
Speaker 6: I have a one point five year old site getting
Speaker 6: one hundred thousand plus daily.
Speaker 3: So my mom actually was in the hospital there and
Speaker 3: he lives in the uniform.
Speaker 6: I am in the adult tube niche. I use crypto payments,
Speaker 6: stealth paypals, VPNs, offshore, et cetera. And I'm still paranoid.
Speaker 4: He's very a very.
Speaker 6: Nice person, thought very surprised if he's been anything involved
Speaker 6: in anything that could call.
Speaker 4: This was all happening over the course of like literally
Speaker 4: two or three weeks, and we got to a point
Speaker 4: where we did feel like we had enough to try
Speaker 4: to go back out there, especially with this like real
Speaker 4: world place of the pharmacy.
Speaker 2: The pharmacy Nicole is talking about is inside a hospital
Speaker 2: in Markham, Ontario. In an official registry of pharmacists, David
Speaker 2: Doe was listed as working in its inpatient pharmacy. Some
Speaker 2: of the contacts we spoke to also said he at
Speaker 2: least lived in that area at one time. This was
Speaker 2: our best lead to get back to Canada. The day
Speaker 2: we were scheduled to leave, I called the pharmacy to
Speaker 2: see if there was any chance he was working while
Speaker 2: we'd be there. Okay, I can, I can track his schedule.
Speaker 3: Great, thanks your hello.
Speaker 1: Hey, hello, hi bank in today.
Speaker 2: I excited to call.
Speaker 3: Okay that he should be on the unit right now
Speaker 3: and that should.
Speaker 1: Be the cellphone mond awesome.
Speaker 2: And if I'm not able to get in touch, you know,
Speaker 2: if he's there the next couple of days at all.
Speaker 2: He is here tomorrow, but it's off off Friday. Cool,
Speaker 2: all right, thank you so much, really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 1: Thanks. Thanks.
Speaker 2: I think we have to operate under the assumption that like,
Speaker 2: if we get him today, this is the thirty seconds
Speaker 2: we're going to get with him. It's six point thirty
Speaker 2: in the morning. We landed in Toronto late last night.
Speaker 2: We're now in a rental car driving to Markham Stouveville Hospital.
Speaker 2: It's a Thursday, and we know from calling the day
Speaker 2: before David Doe is working today and he won't be
Speaker 2: working tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So this is our only shot.
Speaker 2: Hope is to be able to ask him for comment,
Speaker 2: like how do you negotiate having the site that harms
Speaker 2: so many women while literally walking into a hospital where
Speaker 2: you help people. The hospital is huge and it has
Speaker 2: multiple entrances, but we were actually able to triangulate which
Speaker 2: entrance we believed he would go into based off of
Speaker 2: online directories and photos of the parking lots in the hospital.
Speaker 2: When we arrive, the parking lot is essentially empty. So
Speaker 2: we are currently outside of the place we believe where
Speaker 2: mister deep Fakes works.
Speaker 3: We're on a stakeout.
Speaker 2: He will hopefully, I mean hopefully we're in the right
Speaker 2: parking lot. He will show up any minute. A lot
Speaker 2: of things have to happen for.
Speaker 1: Us to be able to get to him, so fingers crossed.
Speaker 2: We know David Doe's shift starts at eight, and before
Speaker 2: long the parking lot fills. We move the car closer
Speaker 2: to the entrance and Nicole gets out to get another
Speaker 2: vantage point.
Speaker 1: For Okay, we're in the window.
Speaker 2: You haven't job shift that starts at eight.
Speaker 1: Chances are you get in?
Speaker 2: I mean realistically, like five minutes before, why would you
Speaker 2: get it? So even forty time is sticking by pretty slowly.
Speaker 3: I don't know if he's going to go to park here.
Speaker 2: It's parking lost like full now, okay, seven forty five,
Speaker 2: A few minutes before eight, I get out of the car.
Speaker 2: I joined Nicole on the sidewalk near the entrance. That's
Speaker 2: not him right now, with that guy's glasses. That's not David,
Speaker 2: I don't think. And I also like, I just can't
Speaker 2: see anyone from far away, because you be honest, he's
Speaker 2: not him. I'm wearing a microphone to record any conversation
Speaker 2: I might have with David Doe, and we're also filming
Speaker 2: with a camera from the car and an iPhone up close.
Speaker 1: This is our plan, and now we just have to wait.
Speaker 1: The seconds are ticking by.
Speaker 2: And then.
Speaker 3: There he is.
Speaker 2: Dough is walking toward the entrance wearing jeans and a
Speaker 2: light sweater. Hey, David, the moment he saw me, I
Speaker 2: could tell he knew who I was.
Speaker 1: It's Laura.
Speaker 2: I've been trying to get in touch. I just want
Speaker 2: your comment on whether or not he intentionally ducks around
Speaker 2: a truck to avoid me. I try to keep up
Speaker 2: all while talking to his back. We have strong evidence
Speaker 2: to the point that you're behind mister deep faith.
Speaker 3: David.
Speaker 2: We've been trying to get it. My mic breaks up
Speaker 2: as I walk further away from the car and the camera.
Speaker 2: I ask how he negotiates the disconnect. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: someone who's a father, someone who has a son, who's
Speaker 2: a brother, can have a site that perpetuates this type
Speaker 2: of digital abuse. Can I get any comments, David. I'm
Speaker 2: just trying to understand why it's real harm. So we
Speaker 2: just saw him, Nicole and I get back in the
Speaker 2: car to debrief something about him looking at me where
Speaker 2: he was so just like pissed.
Speaker 1: He wasn't scared.
Speaker 2: He's not scared that he did this thing and it
Speaker 2: you know, went out of control, and you know, and
Speaker 2: it started out this, but it became this that is
Speaker 2: not what.
Speaker 1: I got from that.
Speaker 2: I thought that maybe finding mister deep Fakes and having
Speaker 2: a conversation with him, maybe I could, like this is
Speaker 2: so delusional, I can't believe I'm saying it loud. I
Speaker 2: could explain to him why this thing he was doing
Speaker 2: that he didn't believe had real world harm, had real
Speaker 2: world harm. But it's not a conversation he wants to
Speaker 2: have me. Actually, quite literally, showing up here is hopefully
Speaker 2: an indicator that this is not going away, that these
Speaker 2: things that you've done online that have had real offline impact.
Speaker 1: Like it's not going to go away.
Speaker 2: You don't get to just like take yourself off social
Speaker 2: media and go to work.
Speaker 4: Does it in some way like fuel that fight?
Speaker 3: Then I just don't feel fulfilled.
Speaker 2: I've been searching for mister de Fikes for a year, right,
Speaker 2: maybe more, and finding him, I have more.
Speaker 1: Questions than answers.
Speaker 2: We waited for eight hours to see if he would
Speaker 2: come back out. It's twelve thirty three if we have
Speaker 2: four four one out four hours, so it's three fifteen
Speaker 2: three pm. Okay, I think his shift is over in
Speaker 2: the next forty five minutes, but we are like high
Speaker 2: alert in case it comes out. Our team was posted
Speaker 2: near different entry points throughout the day, but ultimately we
Speaker 2: believe he went out another exit. We have two more
Speaker 2: days here and we're not returning to the hospital because
Speaker 2: we know he's not working today. Our goal still is
Speaker 2: to figure out where he lives and see if there's
Speaker 2: any chance he would talk to us in a more
Speaker 2: private setting. And that's exactly how we spend the day, driving,
Speaker 2: ringing doorbells, searching apartment complexes.
Speaker 1: But each door, each knock, is a dead end.
Speaker 2: Roxy and I talk about that moment, like all the
Speaker 2: addresses we have, no one's answering the doors, they're the
Speaker 2: wrong places. So then we're in the car after leaving
Speaker 2: there and I just remember being like God, like I
Speaker 2: just cannot believe we can't get his address. And then
Speaker 2: Roxy just comes up with what I can only describe
Speaker 2: as the best idea ever.
Speaker 5: It was an energy that was like, Okay, anything we
Speaker 5: could possibly think of before we have to go back
Speaker 5: to New York. And so I think one of the
Speaker 5: breakthroughs being the knowledge that he was recently a parent.
Speaker 5: That was a clue that I feel like we hadn't
Speaker 5: really gone down. So I was pregnant and I had
Speaker 5: recently had a baby shower. That's why I wasn't able
Speaker 5: to join you on the last trip. And part of
Speaker 5: that was thinking, well, maybe they did they have a
Speaker 5: baby shower. Is there is there anything there? Is there
Speaker 5: an invite? Is there a registry? And then I think
Speaker 5: we thought let's go old school. Yes, there might be
Speaker 5: an online registry, but that comes from someplace real. Maybe
Speaker 5: there's just a physical brick and mortar store where they
Speaker 5: may have been registered. I just searched like Google maps
Speaker 5: for like baby stores in this area.
Speaker 6: That's a long job.
Speaker 1: It's a long shot.
Speaker 4: Thank you for calling Kenneda's greatest story at baby store?
Speaker 2: Is it possible just to see if you guys have
Speaker 2: the registry on file.
Speaker 1: Or the name?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 2: Give me one.
Speaker 3: What's the name?
Speaker 1: First? We give David Doe's wife's name. No luck. We
Speaker 1: give David Doe's name also, no luck.
Speaker 3: Are there any other baby stores?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, hold on, let me give you their phone numbers.
Speaker 1: I give the phone number for David Doe's wife.
Speaker 3: Nothing coming on.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me give you one more if that's okay.
Speaker 2: Last resort, I give mister deep Fake's phone number.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it, Okay, I.
Speaker 4: Guess it's under.
Speaker 2: I did one of I think that would be it. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 2: I think I think that's it. The person on the
Speaker 2: other end, to confirm that we have the right people,
Speaker 2: gives us David Doe's home address. There's nothing on the registering. Great, awesome, Okay,
Speaker 2: thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I hope you have a great weekend.
Speaker 4: Cool.
Speaker 1: Thanks bye. We now have their well address.
Speaker 2: We put the address into maps and find that it's
Speaker 2: only fifteen minutes away. We want to prepare before knocking
Speaker 2: on his door, and it's the end of a long day,
Speaker 2: but we figure.
Speaker 1: It can't hurt to drive by.
Speaker 2: That's his house right there.
Speaker 1: That's the house at the end of the one on
Speaker 1: the left. Here's Nicole again.
Speaker 4: We planned to go back in the morning with little
Speaker 4: prep and thinking about, like, you know, what we would
Speaker 4: say in the meantime, I like checked to make sure
Speaker 4: it was the address and it was registered to both
Speaker 4: David and his wife.
Speaker 2: It was beautiful neighborhood and the idea that like this home.
Speaker 2: As we're kind of looking at it, I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 2: It's like it looks like it we could be in
Speaker 2: mister Rogers. So like in like, you know, this home
Speaker 2: is the Truman Show. It felt like the Truman Show.
Speaker 2: That's exactly how it felt. It helped us, I would say,
Speaker 2: put together like an important puzzle piece in the whole
Speaker 2: mystery of who is this person in real life and
Speaker 2: what life are they living. After a night of preparation,
Speaker 2: we're back in the car. We drive to David Joe's
Speaker 2: address and park a few doors down from his house.
Speaker 3: By the way, shades are drawn.
Speaker 4: Like, I don't see any obvious candras or anything like.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I walk up to the house. Every shade is closed.
Speaker 2: You guys, I wait, wow, So you're gonna shade over
Speaker 2: the front door.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a shade over the front door too.
Speaker 1: No one answers.
Speaker 2: I can't see into the house, but it feels lifeless.
Speaker 2: I tried checking in with the neighbors by good morning
Speaker 2: as your quick question. Yeah, do you know if David
Speaker 2: don't are here? Believe there, But I don't know today. Okay,
Speaker 2: do you know when I'm just trying to get in touch,
Speaker 2: you know when the last time you seldom.
Speaker 6: Was maybe.
Speaker 4: Definitely last week, maybe Thursday.
Speaker 1: Friday, Thursday or Friday.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, Well I feel like they might have gone
Speaker 2: away for the weekend.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: The neighbor was like, yeah, they're usually here.
Speaker 5: It's basically like.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen him. We tried knocking on his door
Speaker 2: one more time before heading home to New York.
Speaker 1: No answer, and no one seems to be home.
Speaker 2: We would leave the next day, and I just felt
Speaker 2: so unbelievably conflicted. Technically, we'd accomplished our mission in coming
Speaker 2: out here, So why did I feel so frustrated. I
Speaker 2: have been in tech for fifteen years. I've interviewed people
Speaker 2: during hard times. I've asked hard questions.
Speaker 7: I've never been looked at with that level of disdain,
Speaker 7: like I'm yelling at your back, saying, like the harm
Speaker 7: is real, Like you're not going to listen to me today.
Speaker 2: You're not going to listen when the laws are made.
Speaker 2: You're not going to listen to women when they speak
Speaker 2: out about this. We're all going to be talking to
Speaker 2: your back, right and so like that for me, I
Speaker 2: think was a bit of a switch of being like, Okay,
Speaker 2: well you won't listen, so need to go tell every
Speaker 2: single person, like every lawmaker, every celebrity, like every every parent,
Speaker 2: like we need people to know that this thing that
Speaker 2: you're doing is so wrong and why it's so wrong.
Speaker 2: We've got to like utilize all of this to kind
Speaker 2: of create a movement around it, because we're just going to.
Speaker 1: Be speaking to us back like now, we've got to
Speaker 1: go big.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to look back on this moment because I
Speaker 2: wish I knew then what I know now.
Speaker 3: So it's you know, even though it's uncomfortable to talk
Speaker 3: about it's happening today. No, I'm speaking out for all
Speaker 3: these other women and children who are having to deal
Speaker 3: with this right now so they can have some.
Speaker 2: Justice and how this journey would take me to Paris Hillton.
Speaker 2: That's next week on Searching for Mister Deep Fakes, Part four,
Speaker 2: the final installment. Find Searching for Mister Deep Fakes Part
Speaker 2: four and the mostly Human podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: If you've been.
Speaker 2: Targeted by sexually explicit deep fakes, we want to hear
Speaker 2: from you. Email us at hello at mostly human dot
Speaker 2: com and for resources, visit beyond mister deep fakes dot com.
Speaker 2: That's beyond mrdepfakes dot com for resources. If you are
Speaker 2: a loved one needs support, Text hope to six four
Speaker 2: six seven three or call her text nine eight eight.
Speaker 2: Mostly Human is a production of iHeart Podcasts and mostly
Speaker 2: Human Media. Searching for Mister Deep Fakes is a multi
Speaker 2: year investigation in partnership with BFD and eleven eleven Media.
Speaker 2: It's produced and edited by Lori Siegel, Nicole Bouchet, Lauren Hanson,
Speaker 2: abou Zafar, Roxy Hunt, and Tony Castle. Sound design and
Speaker 2: mixing by Derek Clements and abou Zafar. If you want
Speaker 2: to see our short form vertical docuseries on Mister Deep Fakes,
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Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Oh and please rate and review the show and share
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Speaker 1: See you next week.