Part One: The Websites Behind An International Rapist Network

September 1, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In 2011, a man named Dominique Pélicot began drugging his wife, Gisèle, with benzodiazepines and muscle relaxants, then inviting strangers he met on an anonymous French chat site called Coco to come to their home and rape her while she was unconscious. He filmed everything. This went on for nearly a decade. When Gisèle finally discovered what had happened, she did something unprecedented in French law: she insisted the trial be held in public, forcing the country to confront the reality that dozens of seemingly ordinary men—neighbors, tradesmen, a nurse—were willing to rape an unconscious woman. But the story does not start with Pélicot. It starts with the website that made his crimes possible, and with its founder, a man named Isaac Steedl, who built a platform optimized for anonymity and predation.

The Website for "Nice People"

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What you'll learn

1 Part One: The Websites Behind An International Rapist Network
2 (00:05) **Episode Introduction** - Robert and Bridget Todd set up the episode's focus on tech founders and the damage their websites enable.
3 (04:09) **Introducing Coco** - The anonymous chat site that became a hub for bigotry, violence, and sex crimes.
4 (07:43) **Isaac Steedel's Background** - Very little is known about the founder, but his early life and motivations remain mysterious.
5 (13:13) **The Internet Context of 2003** - The early web landscape that influenced Coco's creation and growth.
6 (19:46) **Coco's Escalation into Crime** - The site transformed from a general chat platform into a clearinghouse for illegal content and real-world abuse.
7 (23:52) **The "Without Their Knowledge" Chat Room** - A dedicated space on Coco for men to discuss and coordinate drugging and raping unconscious women.

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Show Notes

There exists online a community of websites and users who encourage, pay and teach each other in how to drug and sexually abuse women. Robert explores the case of one particular website, Coco, in France, along with in one specific offender, Dominique Pelicot.

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