US YouTube personality Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, arrives for the 36th Annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California, on March 4, 2023.
MrBeast and some BBC stars are the latest victims of AI deepfakes. Reports stated that their fake images are being used by scammers in advertisements to fool online users.
One of the scam ad videos, which claims that the YouTuber is offering new iPhones for just $2, has already appeared on TikTok. Since the image of MrBeast looks real, there's a high chance that many people will fall victim to the malicious deepfake campaign.
MrBeast Questions SocMeds After YouTuber's Deepfakes Appear in Scam Ad
According to BBC News, the world's biggest YouTuber is not the only one who has fallen to AI deepfakes. Malicious actors also deepfaked the images of BBC stars Sally Bundock and Matthew Amroliwala.
Like the MrBeast scam ad, fake photos and videos of Amroliwala and Bundock were also used to promote other advertisement scams.
One of these videos showed the BBC journalists introducing billionaire Elon Musk, who is promoting an investment opportunity (of course, the X owner's video is also fake).
This is not new since older deepfake videos already used Elon Musk's deepfakes, claiming he was giving away free money and cryptocurrency coins.
Since the latest deepfake scam ads are quite serious, BBC contacted Meta. After that, the Facebook owner decided to take down the content.
A Meta spokesperson said they are not allowing this kind of content and have removed it.
"We're constantly working to improve our systems and encourage anyone who sees content they believe breaks our rules to report it using our in-app tools so we can investigate and take action," added the official.
A TikTok spokesman also announced that the fake MrBeast advertisement was removed a few hours after scammers uploaded it. The popular video platform also promised that the account that published the scam advertisement has been removed for violating its policies.
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MrBeast Questions SocMeds' Capabilities
This illustration photo taken on January 30, 2023 shows a phone screen displaying a statement from the head of security policy at META with a fake video (R) of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky calling on his soldiers to lay down their weapons shown in the background, in Washington, DC.
After the deepfake scam incident on TikTok, MrBeast (real name Jimmy Donaldson) questioned the capabilities of socmed companies when handling fake AI advertisements. NBC News reported that MrBeast posted on X, explaining how serious AI deepfake malicious campaigns are. Donaldson said that more and more people are getting exposed to the deepfake ad he was featured in.
He asked if social media firms are ready to handle the rise of AI deepfakes, reiterating that this is a "serious problem." Experts said that the MrBeast deepfake video is far from perfect. They noticed some lip-syn errors in the content. However, researchers warned that AI deepfakes are becoming more realistic as years pass.
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