Reporter Spent Years Tracking Down the Man Behind a Deepfake Porn Website, then Recruited Paris Hilton to Help Expose Him (Exclusive) Janelle GriffithFri, June 5, 2026 at 10:10 PM UTC 0 Paris Hilton and Laurie SegallCredit: Courtesy of Mostly Human Journalist Laurie Segall spent three years investigating the person behind Mr.
Reporter Spent Years Tracking Down the Man Behind a Deepfake Porn Website, then Recruited Paris Hilton to Help Expose Him (Exclusive)
Janelle GriffithFri, June 5, 2026 at 10:10 PM UTC
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Paris Hilton and Laurie SegallCredit: Courtesy of Mostly Human -
Journalist Laurie Segall spent three years investigating the person behind Mr. Deepfakes, a site that allowed users to upload and view AI-generated deepfake pornography
The investigation led Segall to confront the site's owner in Markham, Ontario, and helped contribute to the site's shutdown in 2025
Her hunt is the subject of a new 14-part docuseries Searching for Mr. Deepfakes,streaming exclusively on Paris Hilton's TikTok account in collaboration with Segall's Mostly Human Media
In 2022, technology journalist Laurie Segall came across a website so disturbing that it spurred her to launch an investigation into the person behind it.
The site, Mr. Deepfakes, allowed users to upload and view AI-generated deepfake pornography. The site hosted hundreds of thousands of sexually explicit, digitally altered images featuring celebrities and every day people and, at its peak, drew 17 million monthly visitors, according to Segall.
"It's the story of innovation without guardrails, where women and girls are some of the first to be impacted negatively," Segall tells PEOPLE. "So I decided that we needed to track the guy behind the anonymous site, and that took quite a bit of investigating."
Segall, who previously worked at 60 Minutes and CNN, assembled a team that included journalists, cybersecurity experts and other specialists. Together, they spent three years investigating the site, a pursuit that ultimately led Segall to confront its owner in Markham, Ontario, face to face, and helped contribute to its shutdown.
The investigation is the subject of a new 14-part docuseries Searching for Mr. Deepfakes,streaming exclusively on Paris Hilton's TikTok account in collaboration with Segall's Mostly Human Media. Since its release a week ago, the campaign has garnered 26 million video views across Hilton and Mostly Human Media's social channels.
Hilton has her own experience with online exploitation. At age 19, an ex-boyfriend shared a private video of the two having sex, which was later distributed online and from which she says she never profited.
"People assume that because these images are fake, the impact somehow isn't real, but it is," Hilton tells PEOPLE. "Knowing strangers are creating and sharing content designed to humiliate or exploit you is something no one should have to experience."
In January, Hilton traveled to Capitol Hill to advocate for a bipartisan bill, the DEFIANCE Act, legislation that would allow victims of deepfake exploitation to take legal action against those who create and distribute such content. Segall watched as Hilton spoke at a news conference alongside Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, and Laurel Lee, a Florida Republican, who co-sponsored the bill.
"I said to my husband, 'I've got to team up with Paris Hilton on this, she gets it, and she's speaking out,' " Segall recalls. "It's not just about her lending us a platform, her story is important as a part of this."
Hilton appears in the series and discusses being a victim of deepfake abuse. "I hope people walk away understanding the real human impact behind these images and the harm this causes victims every single day," Hilton says. "One in eight girls know someone impacted by deepfake pornography, and this can happen to anyone."
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The Simple Life star says there are more than 100,000 deepfake images of her online. "I'm fortunate to have a team helping report and remove them, but the process is incredibly time-consuming because you have to go platform by platform," she tells PEOPLE. "Thankfully, the Take It Down Act is now law, which means platforms are required to remove this content quickly and face consequences if they don't."
Adds Segall: "Back in the day, it was one video and now it's 100,000 sexually explicit images. And now, you don't even have to take a photo of yourself or a video. Now you just have to exist."
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During the reporting process, Segall and her team pieced together a portrait of Mr. Deepfakes by tracking down his online and offline portrait. They also used AI facial recognition software to uncover his identity.
"We were able to plug it in and see a name from a wedding card, see him at a music festival, figure out his orbit, and it kept taking us further and further," Segall says.
They eventually learned he is a father and worked as a pharmacist. "We ended up calling a local baby store and that is how we ended up getting his home address, because he had a baby registry," she says. By calling various pharmacies they were able to hone in on where he was working. Mr. Deepfakes shut down in May 2025 after a service provider withdrew its support, halting the site's operations, Segall says. He has not faced any legal consequences or answered to the allegations.
Still, much has changed since the investigation began. Women now have more recourse.
"The conversation is also moving to platforms, payment providers, who else is liable in this ecosystem that enables this," Segall says. "Those are conversations that we can have now. And my hope is that this story enables us to have that conversation."
The 14-part docuseries Searching for Mr. Deepfakes is now available in full on Paris Hilton's TikTok account. Additional audio content related to the investigation and its characters will roll out on the Mostly Human with Laurie Segall podcast every Thursday through June 25.
on People
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: June 5, 2026 at 06:36PM on Source: PRIME TIME
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