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[computer clicking]
[breathing]
YOUNG GIRL: Once upon a time, the sun was shining.
And it went up into the sky.
[upbeat music playing]
TAYLOR: Math and science make sense.
Numbers don't lie and aren't really up for interpretation.
I come from a long line of engineers.
Both my parents are engineers.
My grandfather is an engineer. My cousin is an engineer.
My uncle is an engineer. I'm an engineer.
My other cousin's going for engineering,
like everyone in the family.
We're all a bunch of nerds.
[upbeat music playing]
[blocks clacking]
Yes. We have a marble, a wedge and blocks.
TAYLOR: My mom is like the hardest working person that I know,
so that naturally kind of led me and my brother to believe
that like we could be really, really hard working people.
I always just wanted to like make her proud.
[upbeat music playing]
I'll admit it. I liked school.
I always did my homework. I never once cheated.
I never once, like, broke the rules
because I was too scared what would happen if I did?
And also, just like, I didn't want to break the rules.
MAN: Whoa! Holy smokes.
TAYLOR: I think my teachers were concerned because
I was worried about college when I was in seventh grade.
Like, I was like stressing out about getting into college
when I was 12.
[upbeat music playing]
I think I'm definitely very concerned about
how others perceive me.
[keyboard typing]
[notification dings]
[keyboard typing]
[notification dings]
[computer clicks]
[keyboard typing]
[notification dings]
[heavy breathing]
[static ringing]
[overwhelming music playing]
TAYLOR: I was sitting here with my boyfriend
and my face popped up on the screen.
[overwhelming music playing]
And it was just shocking. Like seeing my face.
Looking at the camera.
Basically making eye contact with me.
I had actually been getting messages from guys on Instagram.
[overwhelming music playing]
It clicked like, oh my God,
people were messaging me because they found me on...
on a porn website.
I was just...
first of all shocked that, like, my name and my face were on there.
I didn't even, like, register
that my school and my hometown
were also on there.
And then just seeing like, oh my God,
these videos have thousands of views on them.
TAYLOR: There were, I think, six or seven videos on Pornhub.
And there's also an Xhamster account.
People were commenting like disgusting things,
and I had to read that
and know that like... they know my face.
Like these people now know what I look like
and they know my name and they know where I'm from.
I was scared that these people
who thought it was actually me
would actually try to come find me.
And excuse my language, hearing that the next time
someone's in your hometown,
they're going to fuck you, is just terrifying.
[overwhelming music playing]
I still just haven't really processed it.
Uh...
It's...
It's like one of those things that's too upsetting to think about.
So I just don't.
[concerned music playing]
TAYLOR: That night I was supposed to hop on a Zoom call
to play golf with friends.
I just wanted to be numb, basically.
And then I drank.
I was making jokes about it like,
"No one thought I was going to be a porn star,"
stupid jokes that, just, like, help me laugh
laugh at the situation a little bit.
I didn't want to, like, feel any of that anymore.
I didn't want to feel scared.
I didn't want to feel like I was going to get hurt.
[concerned music playing]
In bed that night, I kind of just, like, broke.
I felt very like... dirty.
It was the end of the night, and I was like...
all you have left at that point is just, like,
you're kind of alone with your feelings.
And then it kind of hit me what had actually happened.
[crickets chirping]
I kept asking myself:
"Why would someone... want to do this?"
And, "Who would do this?"
I felt like... someone's trying to... punish me.
[dramatic music playing]
VOICES: This is synthetic.
Read my lips.
REPORTER: Deepfake videos which are manipulated using AI
can make someone appear as though
they're saying or doing something that they're not.
My face is Ellen's.
My voice is Michelle's.
Ellen did not say these words.
VOICES: Frame after frame after frame,
it synthesises a new appearance
to match the expression of the person in the original video.
REPORTER: These manipulated images
can pose a very real national security threat -
Fake videos could become a real and present danger
to our democracy, Dana.
REPORTER: This is a threat they believe could impact the election.
But the most pressing daily threat of deepfakes isn't politics...
It's porn.
Right now, it is a violence against women issue
and it has been since they entered the public sphere in late 2018.
Teachers, social workers,
nurses, moms, teenagers.
Once these images are online, they never truly go away.
They're out there and there is no getting them back.
AUTOMATED VOICE: May 22, 2020.
POLICE OFFICER:
TAYLOR:
[computer typing]
POLICE OFFICER:
TAYLOR:
POLICE OFFICER:
[bleep]
JAMIE:
POLICE OFFICER:
JAMIE:
[phone hangs up]
[ambient music playing]
TAYLOR: In those first couple of days, I was very paranoid.
It was just constant worrying about, like,
are more people that I know going to see this.
Are they going to see this type of stuff on like,
background checks?
It kind of, like, consumed what I did.
I was really worried to tell my parents
because I thought that they wouldn't really understand
what had happened, and maybe in a way think that it was...
Um... my fault.
I was just in tears and... just incredibly upset.
[ambient music playing]
I was just terrified that there was someone out there
who wanted to do this to me.
I didn't know what their motives were,
I didn't know if their intent was then to cause me physical harm.
It was this feeling of like, I'm not safe anywhere.
[footsteps]
TAYLOR:
JAMIE:
TAYLOR:
TAYLOR: I think it's really important for me to stay anonymous
because I don't want this to follow me throughout my life.
So...
my name isn't really Taylor,
and CTech isn't a real college.
All of this footage is of me,
but the face you're watching right now isn't actually my face.
It's an actor's face deepfaked over mine.
This is the only way I would ever feel safe to tell my story.
[dramatic music playing]
TAYLOR: God. We're basically playing phone tag
with the police for a couple of weeks.
The detective that got assigned to the case
finally called me.
and I had to explain the entire thing again.
So they said, "Someone put porn of you online?"
And I was like, "No, someone put my face on porn online."
And they seemed really confused as to why that's wrong.
The detective was saying weird things to me, like,
"“Oh, well, I need to look closely at these videos
to make sure that it's you."
And, "I'm really going to have to examine this."”
He asked: "“What have you done to cause someone to do this to you?"”
[dramatic music playing]
After a couple of weeks,
I had called him again and he said that:
"“It's disgusting what happened,
but the person had a right to do it."
Like, they didn't break any laws,
so they had a right to do that.
[computer beeps]
JAMIE: OK, it is now recording.
TAYLOR: All right it'’s recording.
JAMIE: Hopefully... TAYLOR: My head'’s in the center.
[typing]
[computer clicks]
TAYLOR: Hi, Adam
ADAM: Hi, Taylor. TAYLOR: Do you have a...
pseudonym that I should use or...
ADAM: So nice of you to ask. No, you can just call me Adam. It's fine.
TAYLOR: I feel like I'’m very nervous about,
talking about, like, my experience.
Because I called the state police,
and they basically told me,
you know, "We can't do anything for you.
We're not going to do anything for you."
ADAM: I'm not surprised, but I'm sorry to hear that's happened.
So, there are no deepfake laws in your state.
Um...
There are a couple in other states,
and there'’s no federal law as it exists today.
I trained 500 judges last year on deepfakes,
and I would say in excess of 90% of them had never heard of a deepfake before.
TAYLOR: Yeah.
ADAM: With respect to non-consensual pornography laws,
deepfakes typically don't fall within the parameters of those laws,
because it's not the victim's body.
That's why we typically look for other ways,
false impersonation
or credible impersonation.
Now, the reality is it's very easy to anonymize yourself online.
TAYLOR: Yeah.
And... usually the investigations I see
where they are able to catch somebody is they -
there's like a second where they didn't have their VPN on.
And that is the tiny hole in that anonymous shield
that they're able to get through it and prove who that person is.
[dramatic music playing]
TAYLOR: I want to find out who did this
because I want to know why.
I want to know what was going through their head
when they decided to do this.
Clearly this person wanted to emphasize
where I went to school.
One of my big concerns is if they go to CTech,
because I'm going back to start my Masters in the fall.
I don't want to be on the same campus
as the person who did this to me
but I have no idea who they are.
[cat purring]
[whispers] Good girl.
[dramatic music playing]
OK, so I only have like 5 minutes to make this
because I have to go to work.
My boyfriend found another
video that the person had uploaded,
so they uploaded a new video, same profile, same shit.
Like, really? Like you're not done yet.
You're not like, are you not satisfied
with everything that you've done so far?
I'm annoyed that the police aren't taking care of this.
I'm annoyed that I have to be the one
to find the evidence and find, like
Like I should not be doing their jobs for them.
So it's just. It's just really annoying.
It's very frustrating.
[dramatic music playing]
VOICES: So often they told victims,
just turn your computer off, ignore it, it'll go away.
Not only are these women powerless to do anything about it,
but the law protects the websites distributing these videos.
Tech companies, for the last 20 years,
have had a spectacular gift of shield from liability.
It's called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
It's the law that allows sites to be hosted
in the United States
that absolves them of any responsibility.
The tech industry profits from it. They do.
They profit from the most outrageous,
the most salacious...
This stuff is good for business.
[notification dings]
TAYLOR: OK so really, all I have to say right now is holy fuck.
About 20 minutes ago I found out that
I know the other girl who this is happening to.
I lived with her freshman year of college
like we used to be friends. We know the same people.
We've pissed off, the same people.
I just don't even know how to feel right now. It's...
Obviously I'm pissed. Like, I'm very angry.
I feel horrible that this is also happening to her,
because I know how it's affected me.
So I can only imagine how it's also affected her.
I don't know what to do right now.
This is crazy.
Um...
But yeah. Holy fuck.
This is - This is really fucked up.
[phone ringing]
TAYLOR: Hey, Julia.
JULIA: Hi, what'’ up?
TAYLOR: How'’s it, how are you doing?
JULIA: Good. How are you?
TAYLOR: I'm good. I'm good.
This is definitely a weird situation that we're in.
JULIA: Yeah. TAYLOR: I mean, like
I don't know what information like you have already,
but I called the police, they haven't really done anything,
so I'm just trying to get as much information as I can.
JULIA: My name is Julia in this film,
but that's not my real name.
I am a student and I went to school with Taylor.
JULIA: At first I started receiving a bunch of Snapchat notifications
from people adding me...
And then finally I like accepted one of the friend requests
and I was like, "Hey, where did you add me from?"
And he was like, "“Oh, someone posted your Snapchat on 4chan."”
TAYLOR: We couldn't find anything on 4chan,
but I also didn't know how 4chan works,
so I had to have my boyfriend explain it to me.
JULIA: So 4chan is an online forum
where people can post anonymously,
and it can be very hard to track their identities.
Sometimes photos can be used kind of as currency on these forums.
So on 4chan there's threads
and a really common one is to post, like, for a specific state.
So like mine was I think under the Connecticut one
and people were requesting pictures of me,
like they were asking for me by name. TAYLOR: Oh my God
JULIA: It was just like, it's super creepy.
TAYLOR: I'm so sorry this is happening to you.
This is horrible. I know how I'm feeling through this.
So, like, it's just, this is... This is fucked that someone's doing this.
JULIA: Yeah.
I'm just more mad that they, like, put my name out there
because I think, Kevin said, your whole name was out there too.
TAYLOR: Oh, yeah. My name, CTech. My hometown.
Like everything.
JULIA: Yeah, my hometown was there, too.
It's like they're slowly doxxing us.
JULIA: A lot of people will like doxx other people,
so they'll share like their private information,
their address, their credit card information,
their phone number, locations of family members.
There is this mob mentality.
Thousands of people at one time
can just be focused on harassing a single person.
JULIA: For me, it was probably like Mike or Alex,
if it was someone from our floor.
TAYLOR: Yeah, I thought...
JULIA: You had problems with Alex right? Like serious problems?
TAYLOR: Oh, no, I definitely had problems with Alex.
I don't know if... at the end of, like, freshman year,
he basically just like...
went off on me and then has been trying to contact me since.
JULIA: Well, last I heard of him, he wasn't doing too hot.
TAYLOR: Mike was so quiet like freshman year and not...
JULIA: Yeah well I was like friends with him for really like,
two years and I had no problems with him.
And then all of a sudden...
TAYLOR: I - Same thing.
JULIA: He even deleted me off of, like, video games.
Like, off my video game, friend list. He was just done.
TAYLOR: He like, did not... JULIA: Why is everyone going insane?
TAYLOR: I don'’t know! What is it about -
JULIA: That's three now.
TAYLOR: Wait, who else went insane? Mike, Alex... Yeah, Bobby.
Holy shit, what happened to Bobby?
I assume you've seen the things he's saying to girls now on Twitter.
TAYLOR: Oh, my God. I opened his Twitter when I was at work
and then I was like, oh my God, I feel like
I shouldn't be looking at this on like company Wi-Fi.
It's just really weird. I don't know.
Bobby was quiet, too. It's all the quiet ones.
Yeah. Engineering is going to do it to you.
[energetic music playing]
MAN: What'’s good, bro?
[professor lecturing]
TAYLOR: Julia and I actually both lived
on the engineering floor together in college.
I lived with seven other guys in our dorm freshman year.
We weren't like stereotypical college kids.
You know how on like college floors
they always have like a bag of condoms?
Well, we got ours taken away from us
because we were throwing them like ninja stars.
MAN: You messed up. You'’re a failure at life.
JULIA: The engineering floor was one of the less party places,
believe it or not.
TAYLOR: In my class,
there were probably two women to roughly 50 men.
MAN: She'’s so much hotter than you.
You could have got with Mackenzie
and grind up all on that ass.
TAYLOR: There have been guys in my class who have acted
very creepy towards me.
People would like, heckle me at meetings.
[male voices]
TAYLOR: There was a lot more jokes about porn.
There was a lot more jokes about women.
That was just more generally accepted.
[male voices yelling]
JULIA: As a woman you're just kind of like expected
to take this harassment because this is just how the world is.
TAYLOR: So we whittled down the suspects to two people
based on who we both knew,
and also who would know about this technology
and this application of this technology.
[dramatic music playing]
TAYLOR: There was a guy freshman year
who lived with me, Mike, who I was really close to,
but we hadn't spoken in about a year.
We always made the joke that like,
Mike and I like made one full engineer
because he was like a software guy,
I was a hardware person and we were like,
OK, together we have like one full brain.
TAYLOR: He was like the most adorable person.
You know, he made me laugh.
And he really made me feel like at home at college.
JULIA: I have a lot of fond memories of hanging out with him.
I would like let him lay his head in my lap
just because like we were just very close friends.
[laughter]
I don'’t know...
It kind of stinks how everything went down.
TAYLOR: It was just a really good friendship until it wasn't.
He basically tried to make me his personal therapist,
and I just couldn't handle it anymore.
JULIA: Yeah, that's what happened with me, too.
TAYLOR: And what's weird is he didn't do that to any of the guys.
JULIA: Yeah, and I was having a lot of issues on my own at the same time
And he, like, never wanted to listen to what was going on with me.
He just wanted to talk about his issues.
TAYLOR: Yeah, he did he did the same -
same thing to me.
TAYLOR: OK, so I'm on campus right now.
I guess it's been a while since I've done a video diary.
Grad school's nuts.
Engineering school is a rough time.
[birds chirping]
TAYLOR: Being back on campus,
I've noticed that I'm a little
bit quieter than I used to be.
[footsteps on leaves]
I just kind of keep to myself,
mostly because I don't know who's seen the videos
and I don't know who could potentially be involved in it.
[footsteps]
You know, there's this big secret in my life
that I don't really feel comfortable telling people about.
I think it's kind of caused me to become a bit more cut off
from all of my friends.
VIDEO GAME: Enemy spotted.
JULIA: People are just like, "oh my God, gamer girls!"
or half the time, they expect you to just be terrible because you're a girl.
VIDEO GAME: One enemy remaining.
JULIA: I would love to become a streamer.
My dream would be to have a bunch of other girls
that I stream with regularly.
VIDEO GAME: Last player standing.
JULIA: There's some games, you literally just open up your comms and say "Hi."
They'll be like, "Fuck you, go kill yourself."
"Oh, is that a girl? Like, go make me a sandwich."
[gun shot]
Oh, I just got head shot because I was adjusting my volume!
So one of the people we thought could've been involved, Bobby,
has been actually like posting images of my freshman year roommate.
There's a specific picture he has,
I think he took it off of her Facebook,
of like her holding a bunny.
And he just keeps posting that picture cropped in different ways
and like he's been kind of creepy toward a lot of girls that we don't even know.
But we've seen his Twitter activity...
We don't really know what's going on with him.
[moody music playing]
TAYLOR: Bobby was displaying some really odd behavior
at the time that Julia and I found out we were both targeted.
Just so out of character from the person that we knew freshman year.
JULIA: He was posting really, really long stories of like Hentai,
which is like Japanese animated porn.
And then stories where he's just running in the middle of the road at night
or like he'll say he just got hit by a car.
TAYLOR: He was posting almost cult-like things on his social media,
making it seem like he was in some video game world.
JULIA: Some sort of like apocalyptic god storyline.
Talking about like "you mortals," and like talking down to humans.
But he would mix it in with, like, talking about golden showers...
On his regular Instagram and on Facebook, like things his family can see.
TAYLOR: It was clear from his posts
that he was very much in this like Internet culture.
[footsteps]
TAYLOR: If it is Bobby, the police need to do something about it. Now.
JULIA: Yeah, he's unstable.
[heavy breathing]
[Taylor groans]
TAYLOR: Hey, so I guess just an update of what's been going on recently.
I spoke to a state police officer yesterday and...
The problem is that they're...
...sorry...
The problem is, whoever did this used a VPN for everything.
So the state cop basically told me that
they really can't figure out who did it-
or not that they can't figure it out,
but that they haven't been able to figure it out so far.
If this person really was smart enough
to use a VPN for everything and didn't slip up
and accidentally log in from their own IP address,
Um...
Then I'm not I'm not going to find out who did this,
and I'll likely never know.
Um...
And at that point, the best thing that I could hope for is that
the videos just get taken down and the person doesn't do this again.
You know, I would love to have that story of like,
you figure out who did it and you bring them to justice
and you take them to court, and you make sure
that they never are able to do this again.
But sometimes it just doesn't work out like that, sometimes-
sometimes the bad guys actually win.
Yeah.
Cool.
I'm sorry this didn't really have a conclusion, but thanks.
[ambient music playing]
TAYLOR: So a new video was uploaded of me.
It was really, really bad.
I'm worried.
Knowing that the perpetrator is still active...
I'm worried that they're going to do something more drastic.
I'm worried all the time.
[fire roaring]
I deal with a lot of anxiety and a lot of OCD.
And the anxiety is really bad, especially now.
With the deepfakes, I feel like I'm not in control anymore.
And because I feel like I'm not in control
in that one area of my life,
it's causing me to feel out of control in other areas of my life.
I should, let me say that again,
because I think it's important for people to know.
I have always worried about things that don't make sense.
[wind gusting]
I feel the compulsion to like, know how others perceive me
and I need that to be in a positive way.
That's just how my brain works, is like... I'm a people pleaser.
I need... I want...
I never want people to perceive me in a way
that's not like professional and not good.
And I feel like what these videos did is just like, destroy that.
My OCD generally manifests itself into, like... I...
I check things a lot.
I check... I check to see if, like, the door is locked.
I check to see if my car is locked.
I check that things are off...
Um...
and I - I repeatedly check them.
And it's... it's...
It's kind of like a broken record.
[water gushing]
[fire roaring]
[objects crashing]
It just can get like, all consuming, where I will worry for hours.
about something I've said, or worry for hours about if something's locked.
or if something's going to catch fire or something like,
you know, little things that just will consume my mind.
[objects crashing]
[ambient music playing]
So, I'm just... I'm angry.
I am done sitting around and waiting.
You can't just do this and then move on with your life
and prevent me from moving on with my life.
[ambient music playing]
TAYLOR: How are you?
JULIA: Am I rotated?
TAYLOR: Yeah.
JULIA: One second. Sorry. I have the rotate lock on.
OK. Yeah, there we go.
TAYLOR: I spoke to a lawyer the other day
and he told me to get screenshots of anything
that looks like evidence.
JULIA: Mhm...
TAYLOR: I've never been on 4chan before,
so I would not know what to look at or how to search it.
Kevin, do you remember what the 4chan archive was that we used?
JULIA: It's just called 4chan search dot com.
TAYLOR: Oh, gosh.
Oh, no. That's not what I meant to search.
What the fuck?
So it looks like what this thread is, is people editing...
...cum onto people's faces.
That's a new one.
TAYLOR: Oh God, I do not enjoy searching for this kind of stuff.
JULIA: Yeah...
This is not pleasant.
TAYLOR: That's the thing with trying to do this type of stuff,
you come across stuff that you don't...
JULIA: Wait...
I found it.
TAYLOR: Like the picture?
JULIA: Like the deepfake.
Have you ever heard Mike or Bobby use the word chick?
TAYLOR: No, never.
Someone asked where do you find the footage to do these?
Then someone said, just scrape their Facebook and Instagram,
you need like 150 images.
JULIA: Yeah, I saw that.
I'll take screenshots of that.
JULIA: OK.
Further down in the thread of my deepfake
is the same like video that like my face is on.
The name of the file is called Sadie.
Which was one of Mike's friends.
But I don't remember...
TAYLOR: Oh, that girl.
Yeah, I know who you're talking about.
I don't know if I'd be able to say definitively if it's Sadie or not.
My boyfriend just showed me a picture of Sadie's face
for comparison, which I thought she had lighter hair,
so that could actually be her.
JULIA: There seems to be like a request from "Krelish."
Like, this person actually has like a username.
TAYLOR: It says "Hi you horny anons.
Krelish is here with a new cumshop request thread,
in exchange I want some of you anons
to fake girls of mine."
TAYLOR: Wait. I know her. Yeah, I know her.
JULIA: Who?
TAYLOR: She went to our school.
So I should probably send her a message.
JULIA: I found Vanessa. TAYLOR: Where?
JULIA: Here. Let me share. TAYLOR: Where's Vanessa?
JULIA: See look, this is definitely her.
TAYLOR: That's for sure Vanessa.
JULIA: And there's Nina.
TAYLOR: Oh, God. Which one was she?
Wait, there's a second one of Nina.
Further down.
Am I showing my screen?
TAYLOR: Yeah.
JULIA: Is it possible that this Krelish is his username?
Because it seems like he's posting most of these pictures.
There's three pictures of Nina.
This one's Nina too.
[computer error sound]
Oh, my God. What is this sound?
TAYLOR: Oh, my God. That's Sadie. That's Sadie.
That's... that's Mike's friend.
JULIA: Where? Where?
TAYLOR: Go - It's Krelish.
Go down, about halfway down the page.
That's her. That is - That's her.
JULIA: Can you like... TAYLOR: And that's her again.
JULIA: It's definitely him then. There's no way.
TAYLOR: Oh my God.
[sighs]
[overwhelming music playing]
JULIA: Mike was the only person that knew Sadie,
and the other women posted in this thread.
[dramatic music playing]
TAYLOR: Mike had a pretty similar relationship with them
as he had with me and Julia,
which is like really being dependent on them
for emotional support.
JULIA: Mike expected for me to drop everything at a moment's notice.
If I was studying for a test or doing an assignment,
he would still expect that you know I would be on demand.
Maybe he felt like he was entitled to all the attention
and all of the support that he wanted from us.
And when we set boundaries for ourselves,
I think that's what... what made him vengeful.
TAYLOR: The fact that the group of women is this big,
it scares me, because I just I have a gut feeling that...
we haven't even found all of them.
JULIA: Oh damn.
This is so fucking creepy. And this was in 2018.
This is literally a picture I took...
...with Mike.
I remember like we made mimosas for his birthday freshman year,
and like, because he wasn't doing anything and I wanted to cheer him up,
So we, we had mimosas, like, in my room.
And, like, that picture's on here.
That's so fucked up. That's, like, so fucked up.
TAYLOR: What - I'm sorry, excuse my language, but this was 2019,
what the fuck?
That's weird. This is...
Is that more recent than anything else?
TAYLOR: No. That's like a year before anything else.
That's a year before any of the other deepfakes were made.
TAYLOR: This was probably like, right after our falling out,
like, right after we had our big fight.
Yeah.
TAYLOR: Hold on. Just give me one second.
[web cam switches off]
TAYLOR:
JAMIE:
TAYLOR:
JAMIE:
TAYLOR:
JAMIE:
TAYLOR:
JAMIE:
I'm...
No, but... Like it's fucked up.
Like, we shared a bathroom Jamie, we shared a bathroom
when he was doing this.
He could have, like, I don't know what else he has.
Like, I was taking showers and he was like,
you know, 20 feet away.
It's fucked. It's like, super fucked.
OK. What am I reverse image searching?
This one is of, of me.
My face. I recognize the picture from my...
I don't know, I think it was on Facebook.
I think it was on my Facebook profile.
And yeah, this one was made...
...right around the time that Mike and I had a falling out.
So, it's clear to me now that
he was doing all of this
while we were very close friends.
So, you know, at times when I would have considered him
one of my best friends.
[somber music playing]
TAYLOR: Junior year, we lived together again.
And he really started to like,
I think, lean on me more and more and more.
I would be in my room with my door closed.
And like, every time I would hear like,
a very, like, faint knocking on the door,
I knew it was him needing to talk.
It got to the point where it was like,
I couldn't take on all of the things
that were going on in his life.
And that's where it started to go downhill was when I -
I kind of put a boundary there.
TAYLOR: One afternoon after class,
Mike had turned to me to say, like, can we talk later?
Something in me just like snapped,
and I, yeah, I just couldn't. I just lost it.
He kind of like shrunk a little bit, he kind of got quiet.
And we like didn't really speak after that.
That's how it was for the rest of the time that we lived together.
[somber music playing]
I think that Mike saw any slight as a really deep betrayal.
I don't know if he thinks he's wrong in this.
I don't know if he feels that he is, like, a perpetrator in this.
I believe that in his mind he's getting back at us for,
you know, wronging him.
JULIA: Just googling Krelish and I already have stuff coming up.
TAYLOR: Yeah, it looks like he used to have a profile on...
something called MrDeepFakes.com.
TAYLOR: I searched the username...
There's this one girl who's like on here a lot for some reason.
I don't recognize her.
JULIA: Yeah. Her name was also in the thread with my deepfake,
I'm pretty sure...
Oh, she's an ASMR YouTuber.
She has 4.5 million subscribers.
TAYLOR: This looks like...
basically an instruction set on how to create deepfakes.
It says he has like 1.6 million views. Like, that's wild.
Like who... And it says... But he only joined a year ago.
TAYLOR: It says he posted 132 videos.
That's fucking insane.
Clearly this was like what he did in his free time.
Someone that like...
...knew me on a very, very, very personal level.
It's hard to believe that, like, he...
he has this complete other world that none of us knew about.
[intense music playing]
VOICES: This isn't just some sort of hobby anymore.
This is a potentially lucrative business.
Now you can do it by handing someone a few bucks over the Internet,
and they'll make one for you with a video of your target,
the length of an Instagram story.
There are 9,500 sites that specialize in non-consensual intimate imagery.
That is an exponential growth.
This is not a phenomenon of weirdos, perverts or oddballs.
There's simply too many of them.
It is everyday people.
It's a professor. It's a politician.
It's the mayor of a small town in Denmark.
I mean, these are the people who've gotten caught in countries around the world.
The biggest deepfake porn website that I'm aware of,
is averaging about 14 millions hits a month.
There is no woman in the world who is safe from this technology.
TAYLOR: How's it going?
Good, how are you?
TAYLOR: So I got, like, a bunch of, like, evidence,
and people that we might know.
I can, like, for sure send it to you if you'd like.
JULIA: Mhm.
But I think we're up to, like...
God, probably like...
[hesitates] five girls?
Five or six?
JULIA: Yeah.
TAYLOR: One... Two...
Six.
Yeah, you can send it to me.
TAYLOR: OK.
See if I recognize anyone.
So many penises as well.
[laughs]
The physics of it doesn't even make sense.
[laughing]
Looking forward to it.
[laughing]
I'll get a nice glass of wine.
TAYLOR: Yeah, get like a...
Mike really had some time on his hands.
Yeah. Very concerned about his classes as I'm remembering.
Clearly he was doing several other things.
I know.
[intense music playing]
[phone buzzing]
[intense music playing]
TAYLOR: I spoke to the police and I gave them Mike's name...
and they were able to speak to him on the phone.
They told me that he never admitted doing it,
but that he also never denied it.
The cop, he kind of like detailed his conversation with Mike
and he said, "“Listen," you know, "We both know that
there's really nothing else that can be done about this,
but we need to understand this isn't going to happen again, right?"
and Mike'’s like, "“No, it's not going to happen again."”
[intense music playing]
TAYLOR: They did say that he, like, thanked them at the end of the call
for their handling of this.
And then, they told me they had closed the case.
[intense music playing]
JAMIE: I mean, you could try messaging him.
TAYLOR: Yeah, I could message him... JAMIE: See if he admits it.
TAYLOR: I just like...
There'’s no like...
There'’s no... There'’s no...
There is closure but there'’s no like...
You know, like, I don'’t know if Andrew will kick him out of the group chat
I don'’t know if...
If he does, if that enough to get him to like, do it again?
'cause like...
Cutting him off from his friends might, you know...
Be enough for him to like, hate me enough to do it again.
I don'’t know what to do...
TAYLOR: On my freshman moving day to CTech,
I was terrified that I wasn't going to make any friends.
I remember the night before, I was just like,
I'm like not - I don't think I'm ready for tomorrow.
Um...
We got there. My parents, like, got me to my dorm.
We, like, moved in and then, my parents were going to leave
and I was like, I'm not ready for them to leave.
And so they were like, we'll go get you...
something you need from the store.
And they did. And then they came back and I was like not.
I'm sorry, I'm getting a...
I was not ready for them to leave.
Wow. I didn't think I'd cry on camera.
I was not ready for them to leave.
And then we sat down in our freshman hallway
with all the people who became my best friends
and started college.
And it was really scary.
I'm sor-- I really didn't think this was going to happen!
[sighs]
OK. I'm good.
TAYLOR: It's really hard to, to think about
because, you know, sitting in that hallway,
when I was really upset and really just vulnerable,
was Mike and Bobby.
And they really became my home away from home.
I trusted these people so much
and I was so vulnerable to all of them because it was just,
You know, I think we were all pretty vulnerable at that point.
It was our first time away from home,
Uh...
and now it just, you know, that like innocence
that we all had then is just gone.
[moody music playing]
[muffled male voices]
TAYLOR: He's still friends with all of my friends and...
it's tough because I can't really tell them about it.
I tried telling one of them and he didn't really believe me,
that it was him.
TAYLOR: I'm trying not to blame him...
because, like, he is just trying to keep the peace.
[muffled male voices]
Because the police didn't do anything,
it feels like it's kind of my word against his.
It just makes me nervous, you know, slandering him.
I definitely worry that something would happen
where people wouldn't like me, or people would turn against me.
[muffled male voices]
TAYLOR: It feels like I've had to deal with all of the consequences
that he should have had to deal with.
Like I've had to leave the friend group and he hasn't.
ADAM: In a perfect world for someone to say,
all right, we're going to get you whatever you want
as far as an outcome for this,
what would...what would that look like for you?
Yeah, I don't know. It's a tough question because, like,
you know, I think that that's kind of shifted in my mind now.
I don't really know if there really is anything
that can be done to make up for what happened so...
I mean, you should be really proud of yourself, though.
I mean, you got a lot further in the criminal justice process
than most folks that I've worked with.
So you must have really advocated hard for yourself.
Yeah, thank you.
TAYLOR: Here's the thing. I guess...
here's my question is... Um...
When talking about, like, what he did,
am I able to say, based on my recollection,
and on my hunch, I think he did it.
Would that be like slanderous towards him in any way?
Or am I am I supposed to just, like, not talk about it at all?
OK, so I want you to know -
what you're thinking and how you're feeling about this,
very normal.
And I get why you want to be careful.
But you're the last person,
of everybody involved in this so far,
you're the last person who should be worried about
doing something wrong or saying something wrong.
And frankly,
that is a form of silencing you. Right?
Um...
That is never OK.
[suspenseful music playing]
GIBI: Hello.
[tapping]
Look up. Look to the side.
[liquid sounds]
May I know your name?
[clicking]
I'm going to go ahead and map out your face here.
[cutting]
I could figure it out on my own, but...
I wanted to ask permission.
GIBI: Hello! TAYLOR: Hi, how's it going?
GIBI: Good. How are you?
TAYLOR: Good.
Cool. It's so nice to meet you, I'm [bleep]
GIBI: Nice to meet you.
TAYLOR: Oh, t hat's my real name.
GIBI: You can call me Gibi TAYLOR: I'm Taylor.
So, yeah, I guess.
I guess... I guess you were also...
targeted by um...
...this kid that targeted me, which I'm so sorry that it happened to you.
GIBI: Is it the same one?
I know, I was like, sorry to meet under the circumstances.
TAYLOR: Yeah...
I'm happy to give you whatever information you want.
Yeah, sure. Send it over.
Here's the username.
And then here's his actual name.
So the account has 28 videos of you, Gibi,
and it has 536,011 views in total.
Holy shit.
I mean it is interesting when you tell me the name
of a person, like, instantly, I'm just like, oh.
I would love to just put his face on the Internet and on Twitter
and just be like... hello.
I know. I feel that.
But whenever there is some sort of stalker, creep, harassment situation...
really the best professional advice that you can get
is to just ignore them.
And it's really frustrating
that that is our best option.
You have to ignore them and hope that they just go away
and get bored and then go to harass another person,
or maybe fall off a cliff conveniently or something.
You know what I mean? It's like I just hope they go away.
Like, that's literally all you can do.
It is very satisfying to have a name.
Yeah.
I know so many people personally that this has happened to,
but it's not being talked about for fear of safety,
for fear of embarrassment,
for fear of being misunderstood.
So I think I'm very tired of ignoring it.
[dramatic music playing]
VOICES: There are very, very, very few people
out there speaking out about this.
Because that exposes that person to further abuse.
And so that is weaponized in order to keep victims silent.
The primary targets for this kind of abuse
are women that have upset men in some way,
w hether that's by being successful, by being powerful,
by being unattainable, by being whatever it is.
Whoever is targeted is driven offline.
It's like the aperture of people's lives closes.
The disciplinary effect of those deepfakes is:
you shouldn't be successful,
you shouldn't go into journalism, you shouldn't go into politics.
That has a massive chilling effect.
GIBI: Hi.
Today I need to talk about something uncomfortable.
There is a lot of porn of me on the internet.
My face has been digitally plastered countless times
over other people's naked bodies
to create sex content that I never consented to.
It has felt hopeless and honestly unsafe to ever speak out.
However, I am relieved to finally be talking about this with some support.
I was contacted by someone
who thinks she has actually discovered the identity
of a person who has created deepfakes of her.
But this same username also made a ton of videos of me,
and a dozen of my friends.
I now know his name,
where he lives and where he works,
and I am so ready to finally be able to pursue
whatever action I can
to find some semblance of justice
on behalf of all the people he has done this to.
I don't care if it's just one.
I want to let him know that I know.
If that resonates with you,
I really, really would like to hear from you.
[somber music playing]
FEMALE VOICES: I Googled my name.
And all of a sudden the result pops up.
And everything just caved in really quickly around me.
Honestly, I've still not really got much of an idea
if it's somebody who I have been close to or am close to.
It felt like the image was kind of like ammunition
that could be used against me for the rest of my life.
I couldn't think. I couldn't function.
I stopped eating for like a year where I felt like
if I became smaller, somehow people would notice me less.
It just became very easy to think about
how death would be much easier than living this hell.
I felt alone and scared.
There's always this scary amount of backlash
and people will say you're overreacting
or you post stuff online, so you deserve this.
Seeing Gibi speak out,
I finally felt like I wasn't alone.
I felt like I now had a voice.
[somber music playing]
OK. So a quick update.
I heard about a White House meeting
that's going to be taking place,
focusing on deepfakes and how to change the laws.
So I'm going to be giving a deepfaked testimony.
I'll basically be recording a short video
kind of telling my experience
and what I think needs to happen to hopefully
prevent this from happening to more people in the future,
that people at the White House will view.
So I guess this is like kind of
the coolest thing that I've done
that I can't actually tell anyone about
because no one's going to know who I am.
So that'll be pretty cool, I hope.
I'm a little nervous to like film it
just because I feel like this is like the closest
thing to actual change that I've been able to do.
So yeah, it's a little nerve wracking,
but definitely an exciting step in this...
very weird journey that I've been on.
Oh, and yeah, if I haven't mentioned it,
I still suck at making video diaries.
So thank God, I'm being deepfaked.
I mean, not thank God I'm being deepfaked,
thank God I'll be anonymous, you know what I mean.
Hi, my name is Taylor
and I appreciate the platform
to be able to speak to you today.
Before I begin,
I should mention that my name is not really Taylor
and this isn't actually my face.
What I want you to understand about deepfakes
is that there are hundreds of thousands of women
being affected by this right now.
You may not be able to see them,
but the impacts are very real and very serious.
[suspenseful music playing]
TAYLOR: I think because he essentially got away with this,
Mike will certainly keep doing this to women in his life.
JULIA: I think it's disgusting that he's not going to face any repercussions.
His future female co-workers
and female friends have no idea that he's done this.
And I think that's really dangerous for the people around him.
[suspenseful music playing]
VOICES: Every time we see behavior that is so egregious
and there's no accountability, it really is a blank check
to do even more of it.
We have to create so much pain
for the Pornhubs of the world,
the Xvideos of the world,
that they will move heaven and earth
to get this stuff off their platforms.
We're at the very beginning of this battle,
but we're not gonna allow the dark recesses of the internet
to dictate our future.
I passed my thesis...
I have to fix the measurements setup, but I passed my thesis!
I can get a master's degree now.
That's fucking dope!
And we're going to California.
I start my job.
I'm graduating in September, getting my degree,
going to be done with school.
So excited about that. That's dope.
It'’s dope.
[suspenseful music playing]
TAYLOR: I guess I just like never thought that Silicon Valley type jobs
would ever be within my reach.
Being in a male-dominated field,
I want to be taken seriously.
I want to be known for my technical accomplishments
and the things that I, you know, have chosen to do with my life.
JULIA: I would love to be like a face for, like,
more women in gaming,
but the deepfake situation
has definitely caused me to think twice about that.
[arrow whirs]
JULIA: There's a deer on the boardwalk.
I don't know if you can see that. There's...
I literally just watched a deer
hop across the bank parking lot.
It's running down the boardwalk.
Do you see it? What the heck!
Caught on candid...
It's sprinting down the boardwalk!
[suspenseful music playing]
TAYLOR: It's highly likely that there is still more stuff out there
that I haven't seen.
But then I can't let that fear affect how I live my life.
[distorted music playing]
[crickets chirping]