Understood: Deepfake Porn Empire E2: So You’ve Been Deepfaked
Feb 24, 2026
A woman discovers her face in nonconsensual deepfake porn and begins a hunt to find who made it. She teams up with another target and uncovers a network of anonymous accounts and archives. Their search leads to a massive repository that reveals a systematic campaign targeting women from their school.
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Private Engineer Finds Her Face On Deepfake Porn
- Taylor discovered pornographic videos with her face pasted onto another body and felt a deep violation when she realized the videos used her real name and personal details.
- The state police initially dismissed it as not clearly illegal, leaving her to hunt evidence herself while terrified about who had seen the videos.
Deepfake Law Lag Created A Legal Void
- In 2020 there was a legal void: few U.S. states had laws covering non-consensual deepfakes and most countries lacked specific criminal statutes.
- Targets relied on mismatched laws like revenge porn, impersonation, or civil suits while legislative efforts (e.g., Take It Down Act) only arrived years later.
Two Targets Team Up To Hunt The Perpetrator
- Taylor teamed with Julia to search 4chan and found dozens of deepfakes of women from their engineering school on threads and archives.
- They discovered a recurring username, K Relish, which linked posts and helped identify a familiar face in the uploads.