Understood: Deepfake Porn Empire

Almost a year after Ida Herskind started her investigation in Copenhagen, the digital chase is over. The team have identified the person allegedly behind MrDeepFakes.com: a Toronto-area pharmacist named David Do. CBC reporter Eric Szeto takes the investigation into the streets, closing in on the Canadian deepfake porn kingpin and demanding answers. Featuring: Eric Szeto, Ida Herskind, Zakaria Hameed, Ross Higgins, Suzie Dunn, and Aaron Mackey.

Journalist Ida Herskind is working at a Danish newspaper when she comes across a story that stops her cold: it’s about a porn video that looks real — but isn’t. And the woman in it never consented.As Ida starts digging she discovers the top hit for this kind of material is a single site: MrDeepFakes.com. Determined to do something for the thousands of women targeted there, she teams up with Zakaria Hameed, an open-source intelligence specialist, and the team at the hot shot investigative outlet Bellingcat. Together, they set out to answer a question no one has cracked: who is Mr. Deepfakes, really?Featuring: Ida Herskind, Zakaria Hameed, Ross Higgins

When “Taylor” found out she’d been deepfaked in 2020, she also learned she wasn’t alone. She teams up with another target, and together they start comparing notes to figure out who did this to them.As they narrow their search, a familiar face emerges. But the user they uncover isn’t just targeting them. And when they dig even deeper, they’re led not to a single person, but to the factory where this material is being produced: the largest repository of deepfake porn online.This episode features materials from the documentary “Another Body: My AI Nightmare”, directed by Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn, and produced by Something Films.

When a streamer who goes by QTCinderella starts trending on Twitter, she isn’t expecting to see her face on a porn site — her face, doing things she never did.Because the videos weren’t of her. They were deepfakes. Instead of staying silent, QTCinderella decides to fight back. And her story raises a bigger question: how did we get to a world where anyone can be put into realistic-looking digital porn? The answer stretches back to the earliest days of the internet.Featuring archival tape from QTCinderella and Ian Goodfellow, and interviews with Walter Schrier.

Non-consensual deepfake porn is becoming increasingly pervasive, and it didn’t just come out of nowhere. These deepfakes were created and curated by people, on platforms, inside online subcultures. And they were allowed to spread, while governments dragged their feet, tech companies shrugged, and the targets — almost always women — paid the price.Tech journalist Sam Cole has been covering deepfake porn since its inception. In this season of Understood, she follows the trail all the way to the source, tracing an investigation across three countries and four newsrooms into the very real person behind the world’s largest deepfake porn website: Mr. Deepfakes himself.

Finally, we launch into Musk’s ultimate quest — his desire to colonize Mars — and how he went from wanting to save earth to wanting to escape it. We hear the origin story of SpaceX, including why one astrophysicist calls Musk’s Earth-exiting plan “delusional.” Is the red planet the ultimate “bubble” of total control, or does it represent a level of hubris that’s out-of-this-world? Guests in this episode include:Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer and Mars-exploration advocateTom Moline, former SpaceX employee and co-signer of an open letter against Musk’s anticsAdam Becker, journalist with a background in Astrophysics, Mars mission skepticTopics in this episode include:How Mars Society advocates courted Elon Musk in his PayPal days, but soon went from patron to self-appointed messiah of the movementThe origin and history of SpaceX, its “toxic” and loudest-voice-wins culture, and its plans to colonize Mars and turn humanity into a "multi-planetary species"The ethics and feasibility of space colonization, Elon’s open fascination with Sci-fi and fantasy — especially utopian ideas and Isaac Asimov’s book FoundationThe very real challenges of colonizing Mars, from poison dirt to high radiation to the unpredictable impacts on human biology, fertility and psychology Planet B and the idea of Mars as the ultimate, engineered "bubble" — and why even optimists like Zubrin are troubled by the scope of Musk’s promises, calling them “bat guano crazy.”

What does Musk, father of 14, expect from his “legion” of children? We unravel his quest for genetic optimization, including alleged embryo screening, and his pronatalist views. And we hear from his estranged daughter, Vivian. Voices in this episode include:Julia Black, journalist who broke the story about Musk’s twins with Shivon Zilis.Vivian Wilson, Elon Musk's estranged daughter (archival/podcast clip)Dvija Mehta, ethicist working on emerging technologies.Topics in this episode include:Elon Musk's 14 children and views on pronatalism, dysgenics, embryo screening, IVF (in vitro fertilization), surrogacy and genetic optimization (via Orchid)The film Idiocracy and its influence on MuskElon Musk’s trans daughter Vivian Wilson, on her transition, estranged relationship with her father, and reaction to his public statement that she was killed by the "woke mind virus"Neuralink and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI), Nolan Arbaugh’s experimental surgery, and ethical concerns over thought privacy and “cyborg” rhetoric

Could Musk’s authoritarian streak trace back to his Canadian grandfather? Before Joshua Haldeman brought his family to South Africa, he made waves as part of the radical 1930s Technocracy movement. And while the two men’s lives only overlapped for three years, we find echoes of Elon’s worldview in Haldeman’s pro-tech, anti-democratic ideology.Guests in this episode include:Geoff Leo, senior investigative journalist for CBCDerek Proudian, early investor in Zip2.comWill Shoki, South African journalist and writerAdrienne LaFrance, executive editor of The AtlanticTopics in this episode include:The life and lasting influence of Elon Musk’s Canadian grandfather, Joshua Haldeman; his influence within the Technocracy movement and his historical context (the Great Depression and the dust bowl) Elon Musk's early career moves, including his time at Zip2.com, PayPal and the "PayPal Mafia,” and the Baasskap (bossism) management styleThe relationship between techno-optimism and authoritarianism, and Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto”

Where did Elon Musk’s epic ambitions begin? In search of clues we return to his sheltered youth in apartheid South Africa, a world engineered for white supremacy. Along the way, we connect the dots between a bizarre White House ambush of South African president Cyril Ramaphosa to teenage Elon’s ego-powered quests in video games. Finally, was his “draft dodge” from military service a moral act or an opportunist’s exit?Guests in this episode include:Rudolph Pienaar, childhood friend of Elon MuskWill Shoki, South African journalist and writerTopics in this episode include:Donald Trump’s Oval Office ambush of President Cyril Ramaphosa with conspiracy theories about an anti-white Afrikaaner farmer genocide, or “white genocide” in South AfricaElon Musk's South African childhood, including his time at Pretoria Boys High School and his approach to fantasy role playing video gamesApartheid and structural white privilege/supremacy The South African Border War, conscription and draft-dodging

What explains Elon Musk? Could his most outlandish ambitions and most toxic qualities trace back to his youth in Apartheid South Africa? Understood: The Making of Musk explores his seemingly insatiable drive for dominance, which connects everything from his birthrate obsession (and fourteen children) to his fixation with colonizing Mars.  This four-part series, hosted by Jacob Silverman, reveals a little known side of the polarizing billionaire. Silverman tells the vital beginnings of this story — because the Elon era is far from over.New episodes drop weekly, starting October 7, wherever you get your podcasts.

It's 2025. President Trump is back, and the richest men in tech are on stage with him. What started as a dysfunctional internet run by tech giants, and enabled by failed legislation, has morphed into something even more dangerous: what economist Yanis Varoufakis calls technofeudalism. Host Cory Doctorow traces how U.S. trade pressure dragged Canada into America's broken internet model, how shortsighted attempts to make big platforms behave came back to haunt us during the worst wildfire season in Canadian history, and offers up a solution for how to save the internet, asking: in a post-free trade world, why are we still playing by American rules?Guests in this episode include Yanis Varoufakis, Delaney Poitras, Michael Geist, Pam Samuelson, Clive Thompson, Ed Zitron, and Emmanuel Goldstein. Archival recordings feature James Moore.

American antitrust laws were designed to stop companies from wielding the power of kings. But in the 1970s, a legal scholar named Robert Bork convinced Washington to ignore those laws. Host Cory Doctorow traces how Bork's influence gave digital giants like Amazon a decades-long free pass to dominate markets, crush competitors, exploit their own business clients, and treat users like hostages — and how, after 40 years of inaction, former FTC chair Lina Khan took on the fight to rein in monopoly power. Guests in this episode include Michael Wiesel, Lina Khan, and Clive Thompson. Archival recordings feature Robert Bork.

In 1998, the United States Congress tried to tame the wild internet with a new law: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But buried in its fine print was a provision that would end up giving tech giants ultimate legal protection and control, and stop innovators from fixing what's broken. Host Cory Doctorow traces how a law written for a different era led to the arrest of a researcher, became the playbook for Meta's enshittification, and lets platforms degrade your online life today — protecting them while they do it.  Guests in this episode include Seth Schoen and Pam Samuelson. Archival recordings feature Dmitry Sklyarov, Bruce Lehman, Al Gore, and Steve Sipress. 

Google Search was the gold standard — a product born in a dorm room during the internet’s early, idealistic era. But when internal emails surfaced they revealed a deeper conflict inside the company: was Google making Search worse, on purpose, to boost ad revenue? Google says its changes are all about benefiting users. Critics say it’s all part of a bigger pattern — one that host Cory Doctorow calls enshittification: the slow, deliberate decay of platforms in the name of profit.Guests in this episode include Ed Zitron, Emmanuel Goldstein, Clive Thompson, and Steven Levy.