You're listening to a stage talk titled Reporting
on Hidden Networks of Online Abuse. In this episode,
we speak with the reporters behind CNN's investigation
into the porn website Motherless, a site linked
to sexual violence and abuse. Rather than focusing
solely on the findings, we explore the reporting
process itself, how genderless identify anonymous
communities, communicate with users operating
under pseudonyms, verify information and navigate
the ethical, legal and security challenges of
investigating private online spaces. From gaining
access and building trust to protecting sources
and managing personal risk, this conversation
offers a behind -the -scenes look at the realities
of modern investigative reporting in the digital
age. You can find links to all the resources
mentioned in the talk in the podcast description.
This talk was hosted by me, Charlotte Maher on
Thursday the 11th of June 2026 in the Bellingcat
Discord server. It is five o 'clock CEST, four
o 'clock UK, 11am EDT, so let's get started.
Welcome to the Bellingcat Stage Talk series.
and this live recording. A quick warning, this
conversation is going to include discussion of
sexual assault and abuse. If at any point you
want to leave this live audience, please, please
feel free to do so. This will be recorded to
listen to back later and please also keep mindful
that within the comments that there may be people
with lived experiences in our midst. Okay. Today,
we're joined by journalists from CNN's As Equals
team, an award -winning reporting initiative
that over the last eight years has examined gender
inequality, online harms, LGBTQ +, experiences
and the systems that shape people's lives around
the world. Throughout that time, the team produced
deeply reported investigations into issues that
often remain hidden from public view, from digital
abuse and online exploitation to structural discrimination
and emerging threats in online spaces. One of
the team's final investigations examined hidden
online networks linked to sexual violence and
abuse focused on the Motherless .com sleep community.
The reporting required months of investigation
inside anonymous online spaces, conversations
with anonymous users, and careful navigation
of complex ethical, legal, and security questions.
But today we're interested in more than a single
story. We'll be discussing how journalists approach
reporting in closed online communities, What
lessons the team learned from covering gender
and LGBTQ plus issues around the world and what
as equals the series meant for long form mission
driven journalism. You can place your questions
in the chat accessible on the right hand corner
of your screen, but please remember that this
is being audio recorded for the podcast. So if
you don't want me to mention your username, please
add that as a note in your question. Thank you
all for joining us and thank you to Kara Fox,
Saskya Vandoorne and Niamh Kennedy for being here
to share your work. The mic is yours. Thanks
for joining us and thanks for that lovely introduction,
Charlie. So yes, I think the story that this
team is going to focus on talking about today
was the final installation of CNN's as Equals
series on gender inequality, which, as you said,
had explored exposing gender inequality around
the world. The large team that had worked along
that series for years had worked on pieces from
Columbia where armed groups touted violent campaigns
against members of the LGBT community, had looked
into climate and economic inequality around the
global south, had looked at digital harassment
and explored how technology and AI had been used
to harass and exploit women and girls. But for
this story, the last piece, it all actually started
back in 2024. I'm with the Pellicot Trial in France,
and that was actually not part of the As Equals
series. our reporting just for the CNN News in
general. This team was part of the reporting
that produced an exclusive piece. All Dominique
Pelicot had organized a mass rape of his wife
with text showing how he operated. And Saskya,
I'm gonna turn to her in just a moment because
Saskya had managed to get exclusive access to
the technical report that had contained thousands
of messages that were exchanged by Dominic
Pelicot. with the men in the chat rooms on Skype
and over text messages, which was a key driver
in the reporting that we're talking about today.
We were able to start looking at what other websites
were out there that might be doing the same thing
as what had happened with the Pellico crimes.
as a result of that reporting, and that was the
genesis of a lot of this work. So maybe this
is the right chance to just jump over to Saskya
and let her talk a little bit more about that.
Thanks, Kara. Yeah, I thought that was a really
good intro, and it did all begin really with
the Giselle Pelicot mass rape trial, because at
the time, a lot of journalists were, of course,
interested in finding out more about Dominic
Pelicot, more about Gisele Pelicot. They wanted
to know about the man who Dominic Pelicot had
recruited to rape his sedated wife. We were very
interested in the how. How did he do it? And
that's how we came to get exclusive access to
this technical report. And in this technical
report, there were thousands of text messages,
Skype exchanges, And so we were really able to
see Dominic Pelicot's playbook, how he had organized
it, how he had vetted the men. And we realized
that the starting point was Coco, was this platform
and this forum called Without Her Knowledge.
And Coco really had kind of functioned as this
place where the men met, where they built trust,
built a connection, and then they would go on
to Skype. send each other text messages, and
then eventually go to Pelicot Household. During
the trial, Giselle Pelicot described Coco as the
weapon of the crime. I think that really stayed
with us, with Niamh, Kara and myself, because
we kept thinking, well, if Dominic Pelicot was
able to recruit over 70 men using this website,
then there are probably other spaces out there.
And those were the spaces that we really wanted
to explore. We came across this other site called
Bounty, which seemed to have, there were a lot
of men there that were exchanging non -consensual
images of their wives, of their girlfriends.
And so that was one of the first, that was a
French website. And then from that website, we
then really looked at what else was out there.
We came across this reporting by these incredible
investigative journalists in Germany who had
done a lot of work on Motherless, this porn site,
where thanks to the reporting, we suspected that
there was a lot of non -consensual image sharing
still going on and that perhaps men were meeting
there. to plan out the same kind of crimes or
the same kind of behavior that we saw with Dominic
Pelicot. So it began going undercover on Motherless.
We created a male persona. As you can imagine,
there were a lot of steps that needed to be taken.
before we created this Mel persona, a lot of
conversations that needed to be had with our
legal department, our standards department, you
know, a lot of the editorial leads at CNN to
make sure that we had a framework within which
we would work. Where was, you know, how are we
going to present ourselves? That was kind of
the first question. And so we decided to kind
of keep the male persona's backstory close to
our own experience. So the persona we created,
you know, he was my age, I'm half French, half
English, because we really wanted to keep the
deception obviously as minimal. And then we wanted
to remain, of course, a journalist. So we knew
that in these spaces, like Motherless, that currency
was exchanging pictures of wife or your girlfriend,
which was something we were not going to do,
but we did explore that avenue. And Neve, and
I remember, kind of brought forward this idea
of perhaps using an AI -generated image of a
girlfriend or a wife. And that did not lie with
various departments at CNN. And so we realized,
well, we'll just have to remain journalists and
essentially observe and ask as many questions
as possible to try and get the men to speak with
us, to trust us, to share their story with us.
Um, but it was really difficult. And, uh, I'll
now pass, pass it over to, uh, to Niamh, who
can explain kind of what happened after we went
undercover on Motherless and perhaps, uh, infiltrating
that Telegram group. Thank you, Saskya. Um, so
yes, as Saskya was saying, uh, we were tag teaming
predominantly Saskya and I, um, adopting this
undercover persona on motherless .com. For those
of you that aren't familiar with it, I know the
name alone is horrifying and it really gives
you an indication of the kind of platform that
it is. It markets itself as a moral free platform
where anything hosted there lives forever. And
it's essentially an amateur porn website with
the interface, like a lot of porn websites with
videos where you can browse, but again, From
looking at work that other investigative journalists
had done in Germany and Canada, we had, we realized
that this place kind of had a reputation for
this sleep content, which is essentially videos
showing passed out unconscious women, what appeared
to be passed out unconscious women being raped
in their sleep. very similar to the Palico case.
And we spent time getting to grips with the website
because again, it had lots of different features,
a live chat room, search tabs. The men that were
on there, you know, if you were on there for
more than five years, you'd get like a gold badge
or a silver badge. And it very much felt like
a community in the way that like, I know Discord
is a community. This was a different kind of
community and quite a disturbing community. And
it was from there that we kind of leapfrogged
off into more closed ranks communities, a telegram
group, which we infiltrated, which kind of became
the crux of our investigation then. So we were
going on with the list, like late into the night,
probably starting around 11 PM London or Paris
time, chatting with people, getting to grips
with the hashtags. Like one hashtag we featured
in our documentary and talked about is this hashtag
I check, which is when In the video, again, they
lift up the eyelid of a woman to show that she's
sedated and unconscious. And those videos are
available in Telegram groups. They're available
on Motherless. They're unfortunately very rampant
and out there. And I was spending a lot of time
on Motherless and I came across a profile where
a user was trying to direct people over to this
Telegram group. And again, just for Pigar and
I plugged the link into my browser, we were using
a burner laptop at this stage as well for digital
hygiene to not be, and we were also using cloud
browser as well based on guidance that we got
from our cyber security team at CNN, which was
really helpful and burner devices as well to
access Telegram. And this link worked and immediately
we're in this group and it was a bit of a eureka
moment where The group was called ZZZ. There
were a thousand people in this group. It was
highly organized. That was quite astonishing
for me as well to see how professional it was.
There were tiers. It was very categorized in
the group. There were different chats, a general
forum chat. There was a chat where they were
selling content, offering vials of these alleged
rapes for as little as... $10, $20, there was
a live stream group tab as well. And from there
on, we just started chatting with people. There
were people literally in that group from all
around the world, the UK, France, Chile. And
it was quite interesting. The forum, just observing
in the forum alone, a lot of the messages that
featured in the interactive piece, which we published,
the digital article, came from those group chats.
They're exactly verbatim messages. And you'd
have one man writing in a message like, I'm interested
in drugging and raping my girlfriend. Has anyone
done this before? And someone would be like,
I've been doing this for four years. I've been
doing this for five years. And they'd pepper
the chats with drugs advice. You should use this
drug. You should use this drug. And then a couple
of hours later, someone would furnish the results
of this dialogue that was going on. And obviously
it was happening in real time. The group was
going all the time, members by daily, which was
crazy. And obviously again, I know a lot of people
here won't necessarily be surprised that this
was happening on Telegram. You know, we all know
it is a platform which is scant when it comes
to moderation and doesn't seem to take seriously.
the hosting of this kind of content. But it was
also so interesting to see, and as I said, disturbing
to see how it was being used and to really coordinate
and close ranks. Because again, with the Pelicot
case, we'd seen how Dominique Pelicot used this
big chat room and like how Motherless is a huge
website. For example, it gets around over 60
to 80 million visits a month. And it was from
these big, big platforms that people were you
know, taking that to be like, these are my kinds
of people and this is something that I want to
do. Let's all get together. And there was a kind
of brotherhood going on, which was also really
surprising as well. As I mentioned, there was
a lot of, there was an e -commerce aspect to
it as well. There were people that were selling
things, which were sweep liquids, a term completely
foreign to me that I'd never heard of before,
obviously. These were very, very strong sedatives.
which they promised again for like 150 euro would
completely immobilize a woman, knock her out.
These drugs were odorless, tasteless, and they
were being purchased in ass quantities and by
a lot of the users. Saskya actually went down
a hole of talking to the buyers who was trying
to get her to buy one of the drugs as well. And
yeah, he was making money from this and people
were also making money from live streaming the
rapes as well. As I mentioned, payment was usually
via $20 or so on cryptocurrency platforms. Again,
Otsoski mentioned we were throughout all of this
process, we were constantly feeding back to our
the rest of our editorial team, to our lawyers,
to our fat checkers, to our standards team about
what was and wasn't appropriate. And by and large,
we were remaining journalists. We were trying
to ask people questions and try and understand
this community. And there were some things we
weren't purchasing. We didn't purchase anything
ourselves. We didn't want to be engaged in illegal
activity. Our job was really to observe and to
try and find a way to expose what was going on
in this group chat. But Saskya was successful
in developing a deeper contact with this man,
Poland, who, as Saskya also mentioned, images
were very much the currency in this group chat.
On Telegram, we weren't able to send images because
of trying to minimize deception and to avoid
entrapment risks. So there were guys who were
messaging from Argentina, Brazil. They were telling
us they had lots of experience. Some of them
were offering to get on phone calls. Like we
spent an evening, a whole evening, trying to
call some of these men because they said that
they would talk to us because they thought we
were interesting. They could teach us. There
was like a student teacher kind of mentality
going on here, but a lot of them went cold. They
ghosted us. We really hoped to film this, you
know, using a male colleague to speak to them
on the phone, but it completely fell flat. except
for this man in Poland who Saskya is going to
talk to you guys a bit now. Thanks, Steve. And
actually just going back to, because I think
this might be interesting for this community,
going back to the user who was selling sleep
liquid, liquid sedative, when he got in touch
with me and said that he was selling it around
the world. I knew that we of course weren't going
to be able to purchase it, but we wanted to be
able to prove somehow that this was real, that
what he was doing wasn't a lie. One of the ways
that we did that was I sent him a message saying,
well, how do I know what you're running here
is real and not a scam? That's when, and it came
as a surprise frankly to us, he started screenshot
all of these parcels that he had sent around
the world. He had obviously clearly a folder
of all these screenshots of the parcels that
he had sent around the world with some of the
addresses on them as proof that this was real,
that this really was a business that he was running.
Because of course, at CNN, we have to, when at
the end of our reporting, it gets scrutinized
so much by so many people. that if we say, well,
this user was claiming he was selling liquid
sedative for 150 euros, the first question we're
going to be asked is, well, how do we know this?
How do we know this isn't just a lie? And of
course, that was the kind of evidence we were
then able to give, fact checkers, our lawyers,
standards people, so that they knew we had done
due diligence and really gone as far as we could
in showing what this guy was claiming to do.
Going back then to the Polish user, as Niamh
said, it was really difficult to continue speaking
with some of these men. They would just go cold
because they wouldn't trust you unless you shared
a picture. And also the way that we, of course,
were speaking was was not in line with the way
they were, the way that they would objectify
women, the way that they would normalize rape.
We were not going to do any of that. So it was,
it was hard to get men to speak with us. And
then there was this one Polish user who in the
middle of the night and Neve and I would take
shifts. So, you know, I would maybe go from kind
of midnight till five or midnight till four,
then Neve would take over because so much of
this activity was happening at night. Um, and,
uh, and we found that it was the best way of
engaging some of the users, some of the men was
by just speaking with them at a night. And this
Polish user, he instantly felt like he just was
a bit different in that he wanted to speak. He
wanted to share. He was there to connect with
other users. Um, and so he and I started DMing
each other. He told me about his wife and over
a period of several months, he then started telling
me that he had been drugging and raping her,
sharing the names of the drugs that he used on
her, sharing a lot of photos of videos of her.
And what was a goal that we had set out at the
start of this investigation was that we wanted
to show that these were more than just usernames,
that these weren't just pseudonyms, that they
were real people behind these usernames. And
so we realized that to try and tell Piotr's story,
we were going to have to identify him. And at
first we began asking, you know, using the undercover
persona, if he would meet with the undercover
persona. The idea was that we were going to you
know, send a producer there to meet him in Poland.
He refused. And, you know, this is what we found
was a common theme was that so much of this world
was different, was other, and they didn't want
it to, you know, mess up or mess with their real
life in a way. And with Piotr, it took a lot
of kind of speaking, working out where he was
going to be, what he was doing, what kind of
events he was attending, and finally he let slip
that he was going to go to a party. But because
we wanted to, of course, keep the conversation
going, but at the same time not reveal that we
were in fact journalists, questions needed to
be put to him in a way that he wouldn't find
them suspicious. If I had asked him five times
in a row, where are you going to go Saturday?
Oh, okay. Where's the restaurant? Where's the
address? That would obviously ring alarm bells.
So we had to try and find a way to get as much
information from him as possible, but then do
our own work to find out where he was actually
going to be. And you can talk a little bit about
the planning him in this restaurant, how we did
that. Yeah, thanks. So basically we had to parse
through the messages because we couldn't directly
ask him, where are you going to be? But as the
trust was built up, he was revealing more about
his life and sending a lot of photographs as
Saskya mentioned. And this won't be shocking
to any of the people on this chat, but we obviously
use geolocation. tactics, techniques, sorry,
to identify where he lived based on photographs
with identifying kind of objects and so on and
so forth. So we were able to find where he lived
basically in Poland, the house, the area. And
then as Saskya mentioned, he let it slip that
he was going to this event in a restaurant, but
again, there were a lot of restaurants in this
area. So spent I spent a lot of time online trying
to find with Saskya which restaurant this could
be. Again, we're not product speakers and this
was a completely foreign area to us, so we didn't
know what we were doing. But we did manage to
find a place that was organizing events that
met all the criteria that he was saying. But
we still had to take a massive leap of faith
with our team. It was a three -person team that
went, myself, Saskya, and a wonderful photojournalist
named John. who kept us sane throughout because
we were absolutely terrified that we'd taken
a gamble and that it would be the wrong town,
the wrong place, and a complete waste of our
time. So it was a massive leap of faith. We traveled
to Poland and we were waiting outside this restaurant.
In the cold, hoping, stealthily filming. If you
watch our documentary, you can see Saskya captures
on camera, him coming into the restaurant. And
it's quite a moment because for us, it made the
whole thing real, finally. We'd spent so long
talking to people all day long. And I can see,
and honestly, I think because, again, a lot of
people constantly ask us, how are these men capable
of doing this, talking like this, doing these
kinds of acts? The digital remove I think does
help psychologically for some of these men to
not feel like it's real. And for us, we had to
prove that it was real too. And going there and
seeing him and being in the same room as him
and his wife made it all very real for us. Maybe
Saskya, you can just finish off by telling us
a little bit about what happened next, because
that kind of sums up how our investigation ended
really. Yeah, and going back to how this all
came together, we had discussions before going,
what do we do? If it is him, do we confront him?
Do we tell his wife? And we felt that it would
put his wife in danger if we were to suddenly
confront him. And in the end, we decided that
the best course of action would be to pass on
our findings to the Polish police who eventually
arrested him and he's now been charged. And I
think Niamh is right. I'll never forget that
moment when we were at the restaurant and I sent
a message to Niamh saying, it's the wrong one.
It's the wrong one. And of course they were the
last to arrive because it was an event. And you're
always going to have that moment of doubt. We
had done so much work. We had whittled it down
and we were pretty confident that this was it.
But it was only one date that we had that we
knew one opportunity. And it was of course worth
it because of what came afterwards. So I'll stop
there because I realize we're at the 26 minutes
past. No, it's really fascinating. Thank you
so much for taking us through that and also opening
our eyes to the level of preparation you had
to go through for this particular investigation
as well, which I think is really worth noting.
We have so many questions coming through in the
chat, so I'm just going to go straight into it.
Porco Rosso actually, great name by the way,
already had a question that I was going to ask,
so I'll start with that one. To maintain access
to the Telegram group and observe its operations
over several months, did your team have to fulfill
any requirements to remain in the group? And
as a follow up to that, did you have any users
when you were going anonymous, did you have any
users try to test you or verify you at any point
to try and reveal your identity? Well, I'm happy
to take this one. So to stay in the group, well,
what was interesting was again, this is the group
that we... finalize on, but it's not the only
group we found. There are lots of groups out
there, unfortunately. So we came across other
telegram groups, which we didn't end up infiltrating
per se. But in those groups, for example, there
were tests, you had to send a photograph or there
are other groups to retain membership of one
of these acts or evidence. That was not the case
in this group. So that was why we were able to
stay in it. And as I say, observe. And there
were other groups as well where you had to pay
to gain entrance, more closed off VIP groups.
Again, that was against our legal guidance, so
we didn't do that either. In terms of testing,
absolutely. A lot of the guys did get curious
over time because as Saskya mentioned, We weren't
speaking in the coarse language that they were.
We had to be very careful. The key balance that
we constantly had was our guideline was basically
maintaining our journalistic standards and not
falling into risks of entrapping people, soliciting
people to carry out things, illegal acts. that
was like number one concern. And then the other
balance on the other side was the overwhelming
public interest argument in exposing what was
going on in this group. So that was what our
legal team, we were constantly having to keep
in factor. So people would ask me and Saskya,
can you send? me a video, can you send me a pitch
or just send me a picture of your wife right
now?" And I'd be like, oh, she's busy or I'm
spending too much time on the phone. She'll get
suspicious, but just anything to minimise that.
I know as well Saskya, when you were talking
to the man about buying the sleep liquid, he
was asked, he got quite impatient and was testing
you and trying to verify. um, why you weren't
sending him money. That was another instance,
wasn't it? Yeah. And I think one of the, with
Piotr, not his real name, of course, the Polish
man, um, it was just a lot of deflection, you
know, because he would, he would ask questions
about my wife a lot. Um, and he would ask, it's
not like he never asked for videos or photos.
He did, but it was just constant kind of bringing
the focus back on him, which is something he
wanted. He felt to me like he was someone who
very much needed to share and show off his wife.
That was a common trait that we found actually
in a lot of these men was that they were objectifying
their wives. The thrill came from the act itself.
of drugging and raping, but also sharing that
content. So in a way, just being there as, and
need everybody to do it earlier, this dynamic
of kind of pupil teacher. I think if other people
in the group were to remember us, they would
probably remember us more as in that people category
because we just kept asking questions. How do
you do it? How long have you been doing it for?
And sometimes you'd come across other users that
were asking exactly the same questions. We did
wonder, oh, is another investigative journalist
in the group? But that's why it didn't seem completely...
It was in line with some of the other questions
that were being put in the group because... They
were curious to learn, as were we, just to different
ends. On to this as well, in terms of the conversations
about risk that I know that this audience is
really interested in, one of the things around
the risk mitigation and the many conversations
that we had around all of the undercover work
was whether or not I'm what you have said in
your observation in this group, where we're there
to be in an observatory role and engage as ethically
as possible, would that be available publicly?
And if that ever went public or that was discovered
in court, would you be able to stand on as journalists
for the public interest? And would your words
be something that would not be able to be seen
as entrapment as well? And I think for people
that are also exploring these spaces, keeping
that in mind when you're doing undercover work,
especially if you don't have a large, robust,
amazing legal team like CNN does, to know that
there is a... possibility that if you were infiltrating
allegedly criminal networks, that this stuff
could come out in some sort of legal discovery
or case. And those are conversations that we
had a lot. So you have to think about that when
you're also minding the way in which you're communicating
in these groups. So again, as Saskya said earlier,
around sticking with her age and something that's
not too far away from her name. That was used
as the alias, for example, or any of the other
examples that Niamh gave around how to communicate
with people that wouldn't give a tap off to people
that you might be a journalist were important,
but also knowing that that could eventually be
blasted online, I think is something really important
to think about when you're going into these spaces.
And just a huge part of the ongoing conversations
that we had. And just be aware, obviously, when
you're accessing material, as mentioned, that
can also be a risk as well. For example, Bellingcat's
researcher, Kalina Kultai, she's been in spaces
where she's been looking into deep fakes and
she's found CSAM, child sexual abuse material.
And even accessing that can be illegal in some
jurisdictions. So please, please... make sure
that you are operating within the law as well
and take precautions to protect yourself against
that when doing this kind of research. This might
be a quick answer or it could be a very interesting
one. Did you find any women on the platform at
all? It's impossible to say because obviously
the usernames were, you know, we weren't able
to identify every single username that was in
the Telegram group, but none of them presented
themselves as women. No. We've had a few questions
earlier on in the conversation about how these
conversations first initiate and how you build
the relationship with these people. Saiba, for
example, said, I don't understand how these men
make their initial contact with others on generally
public platforms without alerting law enforcement.
How do these conversations get initiated? In
not very sophisticated ways. As I mentioned in
the Telegram group, there was the general chat.
So it was important for us to spend time just
watching all the messages in there, because again,
there were key players that kept coming up, some
very vocal. As we reference again, this student
master dynamics, some people that, some males
that were very forthcoming and wanted to chip
in all the time. So before long, we were amongst
ourselves developing a list of like, these are
the big fish. Do you know what I mean? This is
the admin, this is the guy selling the sleep
liquid, this is the guy who is doing this right
now to his wife, this is the guy who's dealing
it to his ex. So we were getting to Griff with
the kind of personalities there, but often the
messages would, the exchanges, because I think
as well, there was this security that they felt
that all the men felt from being in the group.
They were almost like... There was like a trust,
an implicit trust that no one was going to rat
on each other. And they were, there were messages,
you know, sometimes calling out users and being
like, watch out this guy's a fake or watch out
this guy's, you know, no good, la la la, or he
won't pay you or something. But a lot of the
times, you know, if I was messaging someone,
the messages would start with like, Hey bro,
what are you up to? Or someone would write in
like great video or like, this is great. Most
of the exchanges started in very banal manners.
Like, you know, hey man, how long, Amelia and
I just asked a very basic question. How long
have you been doing that? Is that your girlfriend?
Is that your wife? And again, they felt safe,
a lot of them, and they felt they didn't feel,
from my perspective, any shame in what they were
doing. So they would answer. They'd be like,
yes, this is my wife. How long have you been
doing this? Three months, do you use this drug
all the time? Like they were very, because again,
we weren't using, what's the word, the kind of
objectifying language. We were asking very straightforward
questions and the conversation started. Shockingly,
in very straightforward manners. I think that
the man that you messaged us, Kia, that wasn't
his first message just like, Hey, is anyone awake
right now? And you wrote, yes, I am. Exactly.
And I think that's what was the most shocking
revelation of this investigation was that this
kind of discourse wasn't happening on the dark
web. That on Motherless itself, which you do
not need an email address to just look through
the videos, look through the website, you would
have comments on some of those videos where they
would say the kind of drugs that they had used.
on their wives, on their girlfriends. So it was
just very much out there in the open. And that's
what we also wanted to get across in our investigation
was that there was just this feeling of total
and utter impunity and that there wasn't this
sense of shame. Quite the contrary, that they
were proud of what they were doing and they wanted
people to know. about it. And I mean, on Motherless,
you had some of the sleep content, which racked
up millions and millions and millions of views.
And as Ni was saying, it acted as a porn site,
but also as this kind of social media platform,
because you could friend each other. And that's
how we were able to identify going back to how
did we kind of come across the Telegram channel
or how did we identify some of the users on Motherless
who were into sleep content was because you could
go from, you would see one user who had been
on there for 15 years who had 10 videos of sleep,
showing sleep content, right, women who appeared
sedated and sex acts are being performed on them.
And they would have 10 videos with millions and
millions of views. And then of course you'd go
through their friends because whoever their friends
with probably have the same incarnations, the
same desires, the same fantasies. And that's
how we were able to kind of look at the community
as a whole, find that like telegram, you know,
user who was selling the Vickla sedative, find
the telegram group that we then infiltrated.
So it was about also targeting the right people
on Motherless, the right users. I think it wouldn't
be a jump to say that the vast majority of the
videos, just furthering on the question, because
I saw there were a few about women, regarding
women users, while Saskya was saying there's
no way of really telling the vast majority of
the videos that were shared on Motherless were
male on female violence and very hetero appearing
male on female violence. don't, maybe these two
could also speak to it, but in the telegram group,
I don't think there was any, there was any indication
that women were doing any of these assaults,
which might be interesting to know as well. Also
say, you know, one way of you talked about the
CSAM and trying to avoid, you know, holding or
potentially being in holding illegal content.
This team, in addition to some others that with
some amazing technical skills had tried to scrape.
motherless, and also scrape a few other telegram
groups that were of interest at the beginning
of the reporting to identify and identify users
that were posting problematic content without
bringing any images in, and just to see what
the language was around that. And that was another
way that we were trying to identify some of the
kingpins. In this world, ultimately, I think
the motherless screen didn't go anywhere because
of the way in which the videos were categorized.
It wasn't an appropriate way to do it. But just
to say, there's so many ways to start these sort
of investigations. And if you're looking to avoid
bringing in content that you don't necessarily
want on your computer or whatever you're working
with, that's one way that we thought. would be
a good reporting tool as well as just a way of
seeing what was out there in bulk. Yeah, I have
to say the scrapes were very helpful. We did
a scrape in the first investigation. We did the
one just on the Pelicot case because we looked
at one website in that investigation, which was
a copycat website of the one that Pelicot himself
used, Coco. It's very simple. As you know, then
you start to get familiar with the key terms
and you're just going through hundreds and thousands
of messages, but you again, start to see patterns
that are really useful then for when you do spend
deeper time in these spaces. So yeah, indispensable,
or it's totally right. Sarah's just put in the
chat, in the US there are no journalistic protections
if you access CSAM. New York Times did a very
interesting investigation on how CSAM was passed
in communities and they build a special browser
which never showed photos but instead checked
for known CSAM image hashes for confirmation.
That's another method to deal with that influx
of data. We've had a few questions about, because
obviously you're reporting on very obvious harm.
about where the investigation lines cross with
police investigation. A member asked earlier
if there was any police reports that you found
on any of the videos found on this site. If anyone
had ever reported a case from Motherless and
how you went about finding those. So perhaps
we can talk a little bit about that first and
then... Did you at any point feel the need to
report what you were saying to the police and
how do you manage that avoiding kind of moving
away from the genus integrity of kind of being
that observer? I think in terms of, because we
should talk about Piotr because this is I think
linked to this question, which is Piaz had admitted
that he had drugged and raped his wife, but he
wasn't saying that he was doing it. And he was
looking for drugs, he was looking for them to
do it again, but he wasn't able to get hold of
them whilst we were having that discussion. Because
we, again, we were consulting not just our in
-house lawyer, we had lawyers in Poland, we had
a lawyer in the UK. We were having discussions
with all of these lawyers so that what do we
do if we are then aware that Piotr is on Thursday
going to buy drugs and this is what he is planning
on doing to his wife? We always knew that if
we were faced with that, we would of course have
to tell the police instantly because that was
one of the questions that we had is, you know,
when do we involve the police? And we had decided
that as soon as we identified Piotr, we would
have to tell the police because again, you know,
it's about protecting her and then knowing that
a crime has either been committed or is about
to be committed. And that is why it was very
quick after identifying him to pass our findings
onto the police. But it is true that at CNN,
It's rare for journalists at CNN to involve the
police. But in this instance, we had so much
evidence that we knew we had good reasons to
believe that a crime had been committed. We were
compelled to share that information with the
authorities. I'll let Niamh actually take the
question about flagging the content. Yeah, sure.
One thing that kind of was out of our control
on one level was that the group actually disappeared
in the midst of our reporting. So we spent several
months in it, but then one day I logged in to
go and do my daily work and it had completely
disappeared. Obviously at that point, you know,
we'd already got more than we needed in terms
of proving that this, you know, we went in with
our, you know, thesis of these spaces are there
and we obviously had found that and we'd already
kind of decided, well, we're going to zero our
attention in on Piotr, but the group completely
disappeared off telegram. And that was, so we've
decided to reach out to Telegram as well and
flag what we've found. And we sent them a very,
very, very extensive email message with like
all of the problematic, the nature of the problematic
content. Asked them how it was reconciled with
their terms of service, their policy, their operating
policy. Kara was really instrumental in doing
a lot of that reach out with Telegram and If
you want to talk a bit more about it Carl, but
it wasn't very fruitful, their response back
to us when we flagged the content to them and
what we believed was going on. And Niamh, if
you remember too, the group had gone away and
more telegram savvy folks on this call probably
know what happened here. So the group was the...
activated, but it still appeared like you could
still search for it. I am endless to Telegram
and they did not respond to our questions, but
after we put this to them and told them about
that we would be publishing soon and asked for
multiple requests for comment, then everything
disappeared. So no trace of the Telegram group
even existing was ever there. And that was interesting.
you know, that was something interesting that
we noticed in that response. And from them, obviously,
we also never received any response from Motherless
about their content. But this could be like a
good segue of saying that since the reporting
has come out, Motherless appears to have taken
significant steps to remove the vast majority
of the so -called sleek content off of their
site. There is an investigation opened in the
Netherlands and to the Dutch server, their servers
are in the Netherlands. And so the Dutch prosecutors
has opened an investigation into what they said
was not necessarily what was on motherless, but
into any people who had uploaded content that
was illegal there. And we've seen in recent reporting
and local reporting there in the last few days
that there's been some arrests made. They didn't
cite this investigation and the authorities are
nine. I'm speaking much on that, but I think
it's work how we've talked a lot about accountability
of these platforms and the responses that Telegram
gave to us, for example, saying that they don't
allow this sort of content and we do everything
we can to take it down. And they've given us
a blanket statement about that, which we published.
But when it comes to the wider accountability
question, even even with motherless having some
of this content removed and Dutch authorities
doing what they can from their side, there doesn't
seem to be any changes within these platforms
to push for consent at the get. So that consent
is an integrated part of their operating model.
Instead, a lot of them rely on privacy laws that
exist in the US or in other countries that intentionally
obscure the ability for accountability, essentially.
We know that this, for the example of Motherless,
their servers were in the Netherlands. Their
parent company has paperwork registered also
in Costa Rica. These are intentional obfuscations
of these companies, we believe, to avoid any
our responsibility in being a part of some of
this work or what's happening on our platforms
rather. Yeah, I'm conscious of time, but I wanted
to quickly ask because Sarah asked earlier in
the chats about the transactions for the sales,
the files of sexual abuse material. And you mentioned
that people were selling products as well on
there. Were they using mainstream payment providers
to manage those payments? You could either pay
in crypto or in PayPal. Of course, again, we
didn't pay Bright, never got any of that content
because we wouldn't, but on the Telegram channel,
they were just sharing videos morning, noon and
night. Same on Motherless. Honestly, at Bellingcat,
we often find that targeting the wallet of these
sites creates the most impact. And if you read
any of our work in this space, you'll see that
that's often the target. We've had a question
from Sumi DH, which I think is really nice and
brings us into maybe looking from a wider perspective
now, a little bit away from the investigation.
When you are done with the case, how do you wash
it away from your mind? Obviously a lot of people
within this space may be conducting investigations
that are similar, perhaps without a newsroom
team behind them. How do you deal with kind of
moving on after you've kind of been undercover?
I don't think you do move on. I think in terms
of, you know, especially with this one, because
it had quite an impact and a lot of survivors
reached out to all of us on Instagram, on email,
on Twitter, on X. I think we found the response
extraordinary and I don't think, and I'm speaking
for Niamh and Kara, but I don't think any of
us expected that response and to see so many
survivors come forward. that in a way that the
darkness, I've spoken about this before, but
like the darkness of the investigation, you know,
it's all a kind of, you know, you have to find
the light. And in this instance, we felt that
the survivors were the light and all of those
months spent having to watch and look at this
really harrowing content. to hear from the survivors,
it was worth it anyway because of what we were
able to reveal, but it made it that much more
worth it because you really felt that you were
helping them and that they felt seen and that
they felt that they weren't alone and that they
were able to connect with those survivors. And
that has been the greatest privilege of this
work has been to be able to connect these survivors
or to give these survivors the links, the contact
numbers, the emails to reach out to, to get help.
And two of the survivors we interviewed, two
of the three that we interviewed for this piece
have now launched their own campaign. And so
how do you move on? I just don't think you do.
I think it's something you carry with you. But
speaking about it to other journalists, I have
found has really helped. Neven was in those dark
spaces in the first piece. We're currently working
on a second piece of car. He's been in those
dark spaces too, but to be able to kind of always
feel like we weren't alone. And I hear what you're
saying, Charlie, that of course there will be
journalists on this call who do work. alone.
And I think my advice would be reach out and
speak to other journalists, other women or men
who have worked in these spaces, just so that
you can feel that there is a kindred spirit out
there who knows what you're going through. And
I think we were really fortunate, Niamh and I,
because we were going through it at exactly the
same time. And it just never felt like we were
carrying that load alone. Sorry, Niamh, I don't
want to speak for you. And I think the thing
that I just like to bring up all the time is
like, don't feel ashamed if it is impacting you
in a way, like you should. The hard thing is.
not becoming, because again, you're trying to
do this job and remain objective and be a journalist,
but also nobody, this is horrible stuff and it
is going to, you wouldn't be human if you didn't
feel a sense of horror and disgust and indignation
and that's not wrong. And you shouldn't feel
ashamed for feeling those feelings. Like that's
the thing I had to kind of make peace with myself
was just, you never, when you do, reporting,
which I'm sure lots of wonderful people on this
call do. You're not going to come out the same
person as you were at the beginning of the reporting.
You are going to change because of what you're
exposed to. And you can change for the better
in terms of, as Saskya talks about, positive
impact, meeting really courageous and brave people,
like the women that we interviewed, the women
that are still coming forward and that are speaking
about this topic. But yeah, it's going to leave
a mark on you and that is the price you have
to pay. But, but don't be ashamed about that.
You know, don't like talk about it. Like as Saskya
says, talk about if it's just, just, just, just
don't be feel alone. And, and, and I'm always
happy to talk to anybody who ever wants to get
a, you know, on a caller about this stuff. Cause
I think it's really important to just conversation
when it comes to mental health, very proactive.
Cause I, I, I like counseling throughout the
whole thing and still do. Thank you so much for
sharing that amazing tips there. We actually
have a resource and maybe one of the mods can
pop it in the chat about maintaining mental hygiene
when doing open source research. And there's
also a guide to reporting on sexual and gender
-based violence as well that was written by my
colleague a few years ago and is still very much
up to date. Somebody also mentioned the Berkeley
protocol earlier today. That's also a really
good resource. and that Dr Alex Koenig shared
on her stage talk, which we can also link in
the chat in a second. Saskya just mentioned that
you might want to speak to people. We actually
have spaces within here. This is kind of the
point of this community is that you guys can
talk and you can find a hashtag gender -based
violence and misogyny and anti -LGBTQ plus monitoring
is two spaces that relate to this talk that you
might find useful if you're working on those.
I wanted to end because we'd mentioned already
that the As Equals project is coming to an end.
I wanted to ask, we've spoken about the legacy
of Motherless investigation, but what is the
legacy in your opinion of the As Equals project?
What did that particular series allow you to
do that you might not have been able to do? in
a normal newsroom beat? And what lessons can
people take from it? The funding for that ended
actually in December of this past year. So we
are still, as Saskya said, we're still working
on a second piece around this at the moment.
And we're doing that without the outfit of the...
as equals purview. I mean, I think the legacy
of having a dedicated reporting project such
as as equals in a large newsroom really helps
everyone that might not necessarily be thinking
about gendered inequality reporting to... But
think about potentially putting a frame on that
for other stories and to find intersectionality
within other stories, whether you're reporting
on the climate or you're reporting on conflict,
you're reporting on anything like that. I think
that that really helped the wider newsroom as
a whole consider gender -based violence stories
in a different light and realize that it doesn't
have to be within a remit of a grant to report
on those stories. So I think the positivity around
continuing this work and continuing work. that
doesn't need to be siloed into this is an ad
equal story is that people just know that these
are just stories that need to be told no matter
what. And that's important with the more people
that are advocating for reporting in this space
in newsrooms will ensure that we don't need to
necessarily have. grants or special projects
dedicated to them. Although, of course, that's,
you know, we wouldn't say no to another way of
accessing more time and funds to specifically
report on these things. I mean, this project
alone was a seven, eight month investigation
with a crew far larger than that. So obviously,
you know, there's so many people. that we already
talked about that helped allow this reporting
to come to light. And that's the power of people
that are interested in driving positive change
and impactful, accountable journalism forward.
It's nice to see there's so many people that
were interested in getting involved. Amazing.
While we are at time, everybody in the chat has
been saying thank you so much for your incredible
reporting. And thank you again for coming in
today and sharing some behind the scenes information
about the investigation and how it came about.
I think it's super important for people to understand
the levels of work that goes into these kinds
of pieces and why investment in journalism is
so important. So thank you again and thank you
to everyone who's joined us today. There will
not be a stage talk in two weeks time. That is
partly due to the fact that I'm going on holiday.
But there will be one in three weeks time. So
please keep your eyes open in the events tab
for that. It will be slightly related to this
talk on a similar subject. So if you're interested
in this talk, please keep your eyes peeled for
the events tab. But for now, thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you for listening to the stage
talk. If you'd like to catch a stage tour live
where you can ask the guest questions, join the
Bellingcat Discord server by visiting www .discord
.gg slash Bellingcat. The music you've heard
is titled Dawn by Newer Self and is courtesy
of Artlist.