Deepfake porn site shut down; the FyreFest of BookTok: CBC's Marketplace cheat sheet
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This Canadian pharmacist is key figure behind world's most notorious deepfake porn site
David Do is, on the surface, unassuming and respectable. He owns a house just outside Toronto with his partner, drives a Tesla and is paid $121,000 a year as a hospital pharmacist.
But he leads a double life as a key person behind the world's most notorious website for non-consensual, AI-generated porn of real people: MrDeepFakes.com. He has never been fully identified until now.
MrDeepFakes was the most popular site globally for deepfake porn, and hosted tens of thousands of non-consensual, and sometimes violent, deepfake videos and images of celebrities, politicians, social media influencers and private citizens, including Canadians.
This week, after CBC News's visual investigations unit — in collaboration with open-source investigative outlet Bellingcat and Danish publications Politiken and Tjekdet — contacted Do about his role in the site's operations, MrDeepFakes shut down for good.
A message posted to the site's homepage states that a "critical service provider has terminated service permanently," adding that the site "will not be relaunching."
The site had more than 650,000 users, some of whom charged hundreds of dollars to create custom videos. And the content — which ranges from graphic strangulation scenes involving an AI fake of actor Scarlett Johansson, to group sex with actor Natalie Portman, to masturbation videos of musician Michael Bublé — has gotten more than two billion views since the site's inception in 2018.
But not everyone on the site was a Hollywood actor or famous singer.
"[It's] quite violating," said Sarah Z., a Vancouver-based YouTuber who CBC News found was the subject of several deepfake porn images and videos on the website.
"For anybody who does think that these images are harmless, just please consider that they're really not. These are real people … who often suffer reputational and psychological damage."
CBC News, over a period of several weeks, sent multiple emails to Do seeking a response. Despite opening the emails several times, according to mail trackers attached to the emails, he never responded.
When a CBC News reporter hand-delivered a letter to Do at Markham Stouffville Hospital, where he works as an in-patient pharmacist, on April 11, he said, "I don't know anything about that." Read more.
These authors were sold a romantasy convention. Instead, they got the Fyre Festival of the book world
Imagine getting dressed up in your finest for a fantasy-themed ball, only to find yourself standing on the concrete floor of a massive, near-empty convention hall, decorated only with a few rose petals.
Welcome to the A Million Lives Book Festival. What was billed as a romantasy BookTok convention for indie authors and book fans is now being compared to infamous event flops like Fyre Festival and DashCon, after a flood of social media posts from attendees painted a picture of a confusing and disappointing event.
Some authors say they're out thousands of dollars after carting books and merchandise to Baltimore for the event, which was held on May 2 and 3, and not being able to recoup the costs.
Pitched as "the perfect event to make more bookish friends" on organizer Archer Management's website, the festival was supposed to include a vendor hall, panels, a content creation room, cosplay meetups and a competition, as well as a fantasy ball for those who bought VIP tickets at $250 US each.
Although numerous authors say they were told 500 tickets were sold, they reported being greeted with fewer guests than authors, and a barren convention hall instead of the promised ball.
Perci Jay, who writes romance and fantasy books, called it "the Willy Wonka experience, but with books," in a TikTok, referring to the 2024 Glasgow event that caused a stir after its real-life warehouse location failed to live up to the AI images used to advertise it.
"I flew out for this," said Jay, who is from Texas. "I planned my pregnancy around this event like a clown."
Grace Willows, the organizer behind Archer Management, posted a video statement through her event planning company's TikTok page on the weekend, apologizing for the ball being "not set up to standards."
"If you would like a refund, please contact me and I will issue you a refund immediately," she said.
Archer Management, also known as Archer Fantasy Events, has since apologized for the entire event and stated that refunds are being processed automatically.
After confirming receipt of CBC News's request for comment, Archer shared a new statement on TikTok on Tuesday evening. It has not responded to further requests for comment.
"We take full responsibility for the way that AML was handled," the latest statement reads, with a remix of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit playing in the background.
"We are doing refunds for every attendee, author and vendor. We are also cancelling all of our future events and will be processing refunds for those as well."
Read more from CBC's Alexandra Mae Jones.
Carney's campaign made big promises for AI. Will his government deliver?
Mark Carney's promise to lead a Canadian economic transformation includes a renewed focus on artificial intelligence, which the new prime minister listed as a key pillar of his plan.
Experts say they are encouraged by Carney's campaign pledge to invest in the technology. But they say that after establishing itself as a leader in the early decades of AI development, Canada risks falling further behind other countries if his government doesn't deliver.
"They care about the right stuff and I think they are generally on the right track," said Lawrence Zhang, head of policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness.
"I don't know if they're going to deliver or not. But it's extremely important that they do deliver."
During the election campaign, Carney announced up to $15,000 for workers in priority sectors to learn how to use AI. The Liberal platform also promised to invest $2.5 billion in digital infrastructure like chips and data centres through the next two fiscal years.
The platform also promised a 20 per cent tax credit for small- and medium-sized businesses on AI adoption projects, costing $400 million through the 2028-29 fiscal year. And it promised to expand national AI institutes or create a new Office of Digital Transformation, although those ideas weren't costed.
Carney's focus on AI is not new. In 2021, he signalled that rapidly capitalizing on AI would be key to grasping what he called the coming digital transformation in his book Value(s).
"Rapid improvements in computing power, the greater availability of big data and advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning all mean smarter machines are already replacing a broader range of human activities than before," Carney wrote.
Read more from the CBC's David Cummings.
What else is going on?
'Landmark' McMaster University study links ultra-processed food to range of health risks
Researchers studied data from a demographically accurate sample of 6,000 Canadians.
Ontario set to begin construction of Canada's first mini nuclear power plant
Ontario Power Generation wants to build four small modular reactors at a total cost of $20.9 billion.
New Brunswick has no mystery neurological disease, scientific study concludes
A report published in a U.S. medical journal reassessed 25 of 222 patients diagnosed with unknown syndrome.
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