Searching for Mr. Deepfakes: The Encounter [Part 3]

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

**Bree Sunshine-Smith** (0:11)
What was so demoralizing was feeling that I had no agency. I had no power. And if it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody else.

**Laurie Segall** (0:21)
Bree Sunshine-Smith is a local meteorologist in Nashville, Tennessee. She's been in the business for 15 years, first in St. Louis, then Nashville, bringing the daily weather to her town and becoming someone her community can count on.

**Bree Sunshine-Smith** (0:34)
Having been a meteorologist here for nine years, I have a really good reputation with the community, and I have a lot of trust in this community.

**Laurie Segall** (0:42)
Bree's an active member of the community, too. Her kids go to school there. She's in parent organizations and she's on the board of several nonprofits. She goes to the local events and she's developed this trusted reputation for quite literally being the calm in the storm. But then in October 2023, something happened to shake that foundation.
It all started when a viewer reached out to Bree and said he'd been getting direct messages from an account that claimed to be her.

**Bree Sunshine-Smith** (1:12)
So I wrote him back and I said, nope, not me, I never direct messaged you. Please report and block it. I'm sorry that happened to you.
Then he wrote me again, the next day he said, well, I assume it was your husband because they had pictures that only your husband would have. And I said, nope, not me. Again, report and block. And then he wrote me back again. And full disclosure, his emails were getting a little weirder with time. Like when he wrote me the third time, he was like, I was so excited because I've always had a crush on you.
But he went ahead and wrote me for the third or fourth time and said, I grabbed screen grabs of my conversation with the imposter and I wanted you to see them. And in those screen grabs, he had been chatting with this imposter via Signal.

**Laurie Segall** (1:55)
Signal is an encrypted messaging app focused on privacy and security.

**Bree Sunshine-Smith** (1:59)
In those screen grabs were two images where my face had been placed on someone else's semi nude body. And there was one deep fake video that was a video I had shot at work that someone manipulated to making it look like I was saying, no, it's me. It's really Bree. You can believe it. It's me.

**Roxy Hunt** (2:21)
Yes, dear, it is me.

**Bree Sunshine-Smith** (2:22)
It is really me. I hope this video proved to you.

**Roxy Hunt** (2:24)
It is the Smith you are chatting to.

**Bree Sunshine-Smith** (2:26)
And also, I will appreciate if things are kept within us. So it was like a proof of identity video with these two pictures. And it was just awful when I saw it.
I mean, just you can give me a weather lady, never in a million years. So I went to my employer. At that point, I brought it to leadership's attention. I was like, look, I don't know what to do. Like, this has crossed a line. This is not just a spam account. Something awful is happening. And they said, it's not illegal. There's nothing we can do.
Since then, there have been dozens, if not hundreds of additional imposter accounts that have come up. I mean, 10 in the last seven days.

**Laurie Segall** (3:13)
Someone pretending to be Brie online is creating fake social media accounts and targeting people who comment on her real social media posts. They're finding people who trust and even admire Brie from her time on the news. And chatting with friends and fans, the imposter gets people to download another app where they manipulate that trust and try to convince people to send them money in exchange for things like fan club perks and sometimes for something more.

**Bree Sunshine-Smith** (3:39)
The one in October, the gentleman or the viewer said, you know, they were promising sexual favors and asked me to forward money for the Conrad Hotel.

**Laurie Segall** (3:47)
Bree, like so many of the victims that we talked to, tries to investigate her own abuse. She tries to track down the many imposter Bree's, but what she finds is that it's impossible to keep up with.

**Bree Sunshine-Smith** (4:00)
There's so many, but at least when I could catch them, I could report and block the page. When these imposter start direct messaging people saying, hey, it's Bree, I need your help. Can you come chat with me over on this private app? I can't intercept that. I'm just a meteorologist trying to be my own kind of investigative journalist here.