Searching for Mr. Deepfakes: Seeds of Change [Part 4]

**Laurie Segall** (0:00)
Before we get started, this episode discusses sexual abuse and suicide. Please take care while listening.

**Paris Hilton** (0:08)
It was just one of the most painful and traumatizing, humiliating, degrading experiences of my life.

**Laurie Segall** (0:20)
Paris Hilton was 19 when an intimate, private video of herself was released to the world without her consent. In the Gossip magazines, it was a scandal, but in reality, it was abuse.

**Paris Hilton** (0:33)
It was like being digitally raped and having the whole world watching it and laughing. And I just felt just so ashamed when that shame should never have been on me.
And yeah, it's something that I'll have to live with for the rest of my life.

**Laurie Segall** (0:55)
In 2004, in the early days of the Internet, Paris' one video was viewed millions of times. The widespread distribution of that sexually explicit video was non-consensual. And today, we're experiencing a new version of this reality. Except this time, you don't even have to take a real photo or a video.
With AI, all you have to do is exist.

**Paris Hilton** (1:23)
Now that it's happening today and you don't even have to know the person, they can literally just take your photo and just make it. It's just terrifying.

**Laurie Segall** (1:34)
Once again, Paris' likeness is being used without her consent. But this time, it's AI generated and it's appearing on sites like Mr. Deepfakes and Beyond.

**Paris Hilton** (1:45)
It's very triggering. Now to see it happening even at a larger scale with strangers all around the world who I've never even met.
There's 100 something thousand deepfake images of me.
It's just disgusting. What also hurts me so much is that these are not real images, but people don't know that. People, if they don't understand AI, they would just assume it's real. And I've worked so hard just to really change that image of me, because it never should have been that. You know, what happened with me was someone, I was 19, I was in a serious relationship, I trusted him. And that was so long ago. And it's, I feel like it's something that's haunted me my whole life. So now for it to be happening again, but on such a larger scale, it's just, it's so humiliating. That's why it's, you know, even though it's uncomfortable to talk about, you know, I'm speaking out for all these other women and children who are having to deal with this right now so that they can have some justice.

**Laurie Segall** (2:57)
Unfortunately, I'd seen this story before, the one where tech moves fast, the laws haven't caught up, and women are the first victims.
What happened to Paris in the early 2000s was a predictor of what would come. And now her deepfake abuse is symbolic of the reality we live in today. And that's what brought us together.

**Paris Hilton** (3:16)
I don't understand how it's legal for there just to be all these apps that are coming up now and websites where people can do this to others because it could really ruin someone's life and destroy their confidence, destroy their future.

**Laurie Segall** (3:31)
I'm Laurie Segall, and you're listening to Mostly Human, a tech podcast through a human lens. This is Searching for Mr. Deepfakes, part four.
This one was, okay, this is when we heard the heartbeat, which like that is so wild.

**John** (3:47)
That's a moment.

**Joanne** (3:48)
That's really cool.

**John** (3:49)
Yeah.

**Laurie Segall** (3:50)
That's my husband, John. As you can tell, something pretty big happened a month after we got back from finding the operator behind Mr. Deepfakes in Canada. John and I found out we were going to have a baby. The journey to stop deep fake abuse felt even more urgent. Now, it was personal.
I realized it's not enough to go find the guy. We have to help people see the thing they're not seeing yet, politicians, folks who can move the needle. And I think as a mom, it just makes it like, all of it just feels urgent.

**John** (4:22)
Yeah.

**Laurie Segall** (4:23)
A win is being able to not just take down Mr. Deepfakes, but fundamentally change the process that enables these types of things to exist. Something that really makes it so other people have recourse if this happens to them.

**John** (4:42)
You've got to remember, you are putting blocks on the foundation. I think it's really important to keep that perspective of change, because there's a lot of different ingredients in change. There are seeds, there's the dirt, there's the water, there's the sunshine, and I think what you're creating now is the seed.