Talk:MrDeepFakes

Sidenty's role in the investigation - COI disclosure

I am disclosing a conflict of interest: I work for Sidenty, the OSINT and digital investigation company that conducted the original investigation identifying David Do as the operator of MrDeepFakes. Due to this COI, I am raising this on the talk page rather than editing the article directly, as per WP:COI guidelines.

Sidenty launched its investigation on March 18, 2024, following the initial Algemeen Dagblad report on Dutch celebrities being targeted by the site. By March 28, 2024 — more than a year before the May 2025 CBC/Bellingcat/Politiken/TjekDet collaboration — Sidenty had identified Do through open-source techniques, tracing aliases including AznRico, ddo88/SepticFish, and dj01039 across multiple forums. Sidenty then shared its findings with Algemeen Dagblad, which published a follow-up collaborative article on April 3, 2024.

This earlier investigation is independently corroborated by:

• The April 3, 2024 Algemeen Dagblad article: https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/pornobaron-met-russische-connecties-achter-deepfakes-tientallen-bners-hij-is-briljant-en-ongrijpbaar~ad2582e8/
• Sidenty's published methodology: https://sidenty.com/how-we-found-the-owner-of-mrdeepfakes/

I believe the current article gives the impression that the 2025 collaboration was the first to identify Do, when the identification had in fact already occurred in March 2024. I would welcome an independent editor reviewing whether this warrants inclusion. Happy to provide further sourcing if helpful.

~2026-20846-87 (talk) 17:17, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Done, thank you for raising this and my apologies for missing it in the first place. UltrasonicMadness (talk) 16:20, 30 April 2026 (UTC)