About the Episode

The moment she began researching abuse and so-called revenge porn on the server xHamster, Patrizia Schlosser stumbled upon a global network that, besides publishing footage of unsuspecting women, also generates huge profits. To get to the people who systematically film their victims, she decided to upload her own "material".

Patrizia speaks openly about what it means to be a journalist in a patriarchal world, how difficult it is to approach victims, but also about what it was like when her own face appeared in deepfake pornography. About shame, anger, and the search for the founders of the largest porn platforms, whose profits disappear into offshore structures.

A strong, unpleasant, but important episode about the abuse of power, and also about what to do when you yourself appear in the material you are currently professionally investigating. An episode about an investigation that touches even upon what should have remained private.

HOST

Pavla Holcová

Pavla Holcová is an investigative journalist and the regional editor for Central Europe at OCCRP. Based in Prague, she founded investigace.cz and has contributed to high-profile investigations such as the Panama Papers and the Pegasus Project. Alongside her colleague Ján Kuciak, she exposed ties between Slovak politicians and the Italian mafia. Following the murder of her colleague, Ján Kuciak, she continued his work, contributing to an investigation that profoundly destabilised the Slovak political landscape. She is the recipient of the ICFJ Knight Award, the Allard Prize, and the Anthony Lewis Prize. In 2024-25 she was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford.

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Patrizia Schlosser

Patrizia Schlosser is a German investigative journalist working at the public broadcaster ARD, where she prepares television and podcast investigations.

In her reports, she focuses on topics related to sexual violence, abuse in the pornographic industry, far-right extremism, and the activities of intelligence services in Germany. She revealed extensive networks that spread intimate materials on the internet without consent and described in detail the functioning of communities that produce and distribute so-called deepfake pornography.

She also dedicated herself to the historical and contemporary traces of the Red Army Faction, the connection of neo-Nazi groups, and the operations of Iranian intelligence services in Germany.