Podcast Summary: Understood (CBC)

Episode 1: The Dawn of Fake Porn
Published: February 17, 2026
Host: Sam Cole

Episode Overview

The first episode of "Understood: Deepfake Porn Empire" traces the origin and explosive rise of deepfake porn—a billion-click, billion-dollar industry built on AI-generated, non-consensual images, with women overwhelmingly targeted. Host Sam Cole explores the multi-decade history of image fakery leading to today's deepfakes, devastating personal stories (most notably streamer Cutie Cinderella), and the technology’s shadowy creators and profiteers. This episode sets the stage for an investigative journey—culminating in a hunt for the Canadian kingpin at the center of the world’s largest deepfake porn site.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Cutie Cinderella's Viral Deepfake Ordeal (00:49–05:00, 29:23–35:30)

• Incident: In January 2023, Twitch streamer Cutie Cinderella discovers she’s trending—only to realize a friend and colleague, Atriok, accidentally exposed on stream that he visited a site selling deepfake porn of women he knows, including Cutie herself. This triggers a viral social media storm.
• Emotional Impact:
  • Cutie shares the horror of seeing AI-generated pornographic images with her face, saying:

    "It is so convincingly my body, but not my body. And holy shit, it hits you like a truck. You feel so violated." — Cutie Cinderella (04:11)

  • Cutie’s live emotional response:

    “Because this is what pain looks like. … Fuck the fucking Internet. Fuck the constant exploitation and objectification of women. It's exhausting.” — Cutie Cinderella (live stream, 29:47)

• Ramifications:
  • The event draws mainstream media attention: Wired, Washington Post, Entertainment Tonight, among others.
  • Cutie recounts ongoing harassment, family fallout, and the overwhelming feeling of being violated and helpless to erase the content.
  • On legacy:

    “I've done so much … But this is what my family now knows as my job.” — Cutie Cinderella (34:14)

Timestamps

• 00:49–05:00: Intro and breakdown of the accidental on-stream reveal
• 29:23–35:30: Cutie discusses the aftermath, harassment, family impact, and forced public reckoning

2. The Long History of Image Fakery (06:12–17:00)

• Historical Precedent: Professor Walter Schreier unpacks how image fakery dates back to the dawn of photography:
  • 1840: Hippolyte Bayard fakes his own death in a publicity stunt.
  • 1917: The Cottingley Fairy photos fool even Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Digital Revolution:
  • 1970s–90s: Portable digital cameras and Photoshop make image manipulation ubiquitous.
  • Early internet communities form around fake celebrity nudes, largely via Usenet and niche websites. "Layer of Lux Luker" community cited as foundational.

Notable Quotes

"Basically, as soon as the camera is invented in the 19th century, people are faking their photos." — Walter Schreier (06:12)

3. The Rise of Photoshop Porn, Online Subcultures, and Questionable Ethics (09:36–13:58)

• Community Building: Early internet forums like Usenet host “celebrity fake” groups governed by loose ethical codes—prohibiting minors and commercial content, but with glaring contradictions.
• Artist Perspectives:

  "I probably spent every night participating in the newsgroup, working on fakes and posting them ... It completely consumed me." — TMFU (Greg Kelly, 12:15)

“Are these pictures ethical? ... A projection of personal fantasy, rightfully identified as such, should not cause us to lose any sleep. Except, of course, to masturbation.” — Lux Luker/Carrie Pearson (13:39)

4. Hollywood’s Influence and the “Uncanny Valley” (14:20–16:21)

• Film and CGI: Movies like "Jurassic Park" and “Fast & Furious 7” showcase cinematic fakery, making the public comfortable with digitally generated, nearly-real images.
• Painstaking Processes: Hollywood's digital wizardry is contrasted with the brute-force, community-driven efforts online.

5. GANs and the Scientific Breakthrough (18:06–21:35)

• Birth of GANs: In 2014, Ian Goodfellow invents Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), a leap in AI image generation, in a drunken “Eureka” moment:

  "I went home and coded it up the same night. And it worked." — Ian Goodfellow (19:42)

• Intended Uses: Helping medical, scientific, and dental fields. Porn was not considered.

  “No, nobody was thinking about porn.” — Walter Schreier (21:38)

6. Open Source Gone Awry and the First Deepfakes Scandal (21:51–25:27)

• Open Source Release: Goodfellow releases GANs code on GitHub for researchers.
• Unintended Consequences: Hobbyists quickly adapt GANs for pornographic uses; "deepfakes" as a term and technology emerges in December 2017.
  • Sam Cole breaks the story for Motherboard/Vice:

    "AI-assisted Fake Porn is here and we're all fucked." — Sam Cole paraphrasing her 2017 headline (24:37)

• Community Reaction: Initial apathy or denial from the tech community.

7. The Focus on Political Deepfakes, and Neglect of Porn’s Harm (25:27–28:00)

• Media Panic: National security and political ramifications dominate the deepfake conversation—fake political ads and apocalyptic scenarios.
• Non-consensual Deepfake Porn:
  • Despite media focus on politics, 96% of deepfake videos online are pornographic and non-consensual (study cited at 28:00).
  • The term “deepfake porn” becomes the label for these violations—though Cole points out its limitations.

Notable Quotes

“For the people targeted by deepfake porn, it doesn’t matter if it’s delegitimized or not. The violation feels the same.” — Sam Cole (28:00)

8. Deepfakes’ Real-World Cost: Pain, Trauma, Powerlessness (31:34–35:30)

• Personal Toll: Cutie draws parallels between her experience and past sexual assault, highlighting re-traumatization and helplessness:

  “It was the same feel—it … makes that resurface. I genuinely didn’t realize it would.” — Cutie Cinderella (32:37)

• Ripple Effects: Content often resurfaces, is used as blackmail, and affects careers, reputations, and family relationships. For many, it overshadows accomplishments.

9. Accountability, Taboo, and (Partial) Aftermath (34:50–36:13)

• First Accountability Moment: For the first time, someone (Atriok) is not only caught consuming deepfake porn of acquaintances but held accountable. He issues public apologies, donates to legal takedowns, and continues streaming.
  • Cutie’s reaction:

    “Genuinely a shock. … He is my boyfriend’s best friend. … The fact that he was able to scroll past naked photos of me and have no … reaction … Bizarre.” — Cutie Cinderella (34:50)

• Persistent Issue: Most creators remain faceless; victims rarely know who generated or distributed the content.

10. Setting Up the Investigation: Finding Mr. Deepfakes (36:13–End)

• Anyone Can Be a Target: Sam Cole highlights how this technology endangers all women, not just celebrities:

  “There is no woman in the world who is safe from this technology.” — Sam Cole (37:12)

• The Hunt Begins: The rest of the season promises an international investigation to unmask "Mr. Deepfakes," the shadowy operator of the world’s largest deepfake porn site.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• “It is so convincingly my body, but not my body. And holy shit, it hits you like a truck. You feel so violated.”
  — Cutie Cinderella (04:11)

• “Because this is what pain looks like ... Fuck the constant exploitation and objectification of women. It's exhausting.”
  — Cutie Cinderella, livestream (29:47)

• "Basically, as soon as the camera is invented ... people are faking their photos."
  — Walter Schreier (06:12)

• "When I was arguing about generative models with my friends in a bar, something clicked ... and I went home and coded it up ... and it worked."
  — Ian Goodfellow (19:42)

• "For the people targeted by deepfake porn ... The violation feels the same."
  — Sam Cole (28:00)

• “I hope that in 10 years … my niece … doesn’t have to deal with something like this just for existing as a woman on the Internet.”
  — Cutie Cinderella (31:55)

• “There is no woman in the world who is safe from this technology.”
  — Sam Cole (37:12)

Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:49–05:00 — The incident and Cutie’s shock/trauma
• 06:12–13:58 — Early history of photo-fake culture, Photoshop, and online porn subcultures
• 18:06–21:35 — Ian Goodfellow invents GANs
• 21:51–25:27 — GANs’ open-source proliferation and the first AI-powered deepfakes
• 29:23–35:30 — Cutie's account of aftermath, harassment, and public anger
• 36:13–End — Forward-looking: promise of a global investigation into “Mr. Deepfakes”

Structure & Tone

The tone is empathetic but direct—combining personal testimonies, journalistic investigation, technical explanations, and cultural history. Cutie Cinderella’s emotional story is not sensationalist but instead underscores the human stakes of deepfake technology. Sam Cole’s authoritative, compassionate narration weaves together firsthand trauma, technical evolution, and the unresolved question of accountability.

Summary Takeaways

• Deepfake porn is the culmination of decades of technological progress and cultural permissiveness around image manipulation and online exploitation, with non-consensual images overwhelmingly targeting women.
• The technology driving deepfakes was not intended for exploitation, but rapid innovation and open-source ethos made its misuse inevitable.
• The personal impact on targets is devastating, with reputational, psychological, and social consequences that are difficult—if not impossible—to erase.
• Cutie Cinderella’s viral reckoning forced a broader conversation about deepfake porn’s real-world cost and briefly held a consumer accountable, but the real creators remain largely anonymous, with industry-scale profit and little oversight.
• The season promises a deep dive, not just into victims’ stories but also the power structure, economic engine, and legal holes that make the deepfake porn empire possible.