Lucy Letby documentary backlash grows over “digitally anonymized” AI interviews

A new true-crime documentary about Lucy Letby is drawing sharp viewer backlash for a creative choice meant to protect identities: interviews shown with “digitally anonymized” faces that appear to be AI-generated reconstructions. The technique—used for at least a bereaved parent and a former friend—has been widely described by viewers as creepy, distracting, and emotionally off-key for material centered on infant deaths and a high-profile murder conviction.

The documentary debuted Wednesday, February 4, 2026 (ET) and includes interviews, police material, and courtroom-era context. But in the days since release, much of the online conversation has shifted away from the case itself and toward whether AI-driven masking crosses an ethical line in sensitive storytelling.

What “digitally anonymized” looks like on screen

Rather than the familiar toolkit of blurred faces, silhouettes, or off-camera audio, the documentary uses lifelike digital faces layered over interview footage. Viewers have noted that the faces look human at a glance but move with a subtly artificial quality—enough to create an uncanny-valley effect, especially during moments of grief.

The approach appears to aim for two things at once: preserve the interview’s emotional immediacy (tears, pauses, facial expressions) while preventing identification. That tension—authentic emotion presented through a synthetic face—is exactly what many critics find unsettling.

Why viewers are calling it creepy and distracting

The pushback isn’t simply that the faces look “off.” It’s that the method changes how testimony feels. In true-crime documentaries, credibility and empathy are built through human presence—voice, expression, and the sense that someone is choosing to share pain in their own body and on their own terms.

Common complaints coalescing around the technique include:

• It pulls attention away from the story. Instead of listening, viewers fixate on the digital effect.

• It can feel dehumanizing. Grief presented through a synthetic overlay can read as performative, even if the underlying interview is real.

• It risks undermining trust. When visuals are altered, some viewers start questioning what else has been manipulated—fairly or not.

That last point is especially potent in a case that already carries intense public debate, legal scrutiny, and deep trauma for families.

The ethical trade-off: privacy vs. realism

There are legitimate reasons for anonymity in a case involving bereaved families and people connected to a convicted killer. Traditional anonymization, however, is blunt: heavy blurring protects identity but can strip interviews of emotional detail. The digital approach tries to preserve nuance while still shielding who the person is.

The criticism suggests the technique may have solved one problem while creating another: it protects the interviewee but introduces a new layer of mediation between the viewer and the speaker. For some, that barrier feels too artificial—particularly when the content is raw.

It also raises a broader question for documentary makers: if the audience is meant to sit with someone’s pain, should that pain ever be routed through a digital stand-in?

Why this debate is spreading beyond one film

The backlash is also happening at a moment when AI tools are rapidly entering creative workflows, often without clear audience expectations. Viewers are accustomed to reenactments, archival edits, and stylistic choices—but AI “face replacement” for real interviews can feel qualitatively different because it resembles a person rather than a concealment.

This may be the start of a new standard-setting phase for the genre. If anonymized AI faces become common, productions will likely face pressure to:

• explain the technique clearly and early,

• limit usage to cases where alternatives fail, and

• consider whether voice alteration and synthetic visuals together reduce authenticity too far.

What happens next

In the near term, the loudest impact is reputational: the documentary’s most talked-about element is not new evidence or narrative framing, but the presentation of witnesses. Longer term, the controversy could influence how streaming-era true crime handles identity protection, especially in stories involving vulnerable participants.

Whether the technique becomes a cautionary example or a new norm may depend on what viewers accept as “real enough” when the goal is both privacy and emotional truth. For now, the audience verdict in many corners of the internet is blunt: the AI masking feels like the wrong tool for the job.

Sources consulted: Netflix, ITN Productions, TIME, Reuters