The media company 11:11 Media debuted a new documentary film on Wednesday, a multipart work that will premiere on the TikTok account of its famous founder, Paris Hilton.
The film, called Searching for Mr. Deepfakes, was created by technology journalist Laurie Segall and her creator-led studio Mostly Human Media. The work follows a three-year investigation into the anonymous operator of a deepfake platform that, at its peak, drew a reported 17 million monthly visitors before being shut down.
The heavy subject matter is a notable departure for the short-form medium. Long-form investigative work has traditionally found a home in documentary film, premium streaming, or legacy news publishers.
To adapt the format for TikTok, 11:11 Media and Mostly Human are chopping the film into socially native installments and distributing it directly to viewers. In doing so, the duo aim to make the case that rigor and reach are no longer mutually exclusive propositions.
Prior to founding Mostly Human, Segall spent roughly 15 years covering technology at outlets including CNN.
The rollout arrives at a moment in which publishers are watching distribution fragment and audiences migrate toward creators and platforms they already follow. A docuseries riding a 200-million-plus-follower account, in theory, sidesteps the discovery problem that dogs traditional documentary releases, though in the algorithmic social era, followers are no guarantee of reach.
For Hilton, the project extends her now-familiar 11:11 pattern of using platforms as distribution infrastructure rather than promotional channels. In April, she teamed up with McCormick to debut a signature line of spices and cookware, again using her baked-in audience as a marketing vehicle.
It also dovetails with her advocacy against non-consensual deepfakes, an issue on which she has lobbied for state and federal legislation, including the DEFIANCE Act. The legislation aims to give victims of deepfake exploitation for legal recourse, a subject important to Hilton following her own experience as the subject of non-consensual intimate content.
Whether vertical video can sustain investigative storytelling will be worth watching as the installments roll out. For now, 11:11 and Mostly Human have planted a flag on a question the rest of the industry is circling.
