{"id":961103,"date":"2026-07-26T20:45:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T20:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/961103\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T20:45:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T20:45:18","slug":"influencers-and-celebs-are-being-targetted-by-ai-deepfakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/961103\/","title":{"rendered":"Influencers and celebs are being targetted by AI deepfakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karen Flowers, a 49-year-old beauty influencer based in Virginia, was recently sent a YouTube ad by her cousin. The clip featured an entity who looked just like Flowers promoting a life insurance company, but it wasn\u2019t actually her. It was a deepfake<\/a> made using her likeness.<\/p>\n

\u201c[My cousin] said, \u2018I\u2019m looking at it. It\u2019s you. But I know it\u2019s not you,’\u201d Flowers, the founder of Curl House<\/a>, a line of holistic hair-care products, told The Post. \u201cClearly, it was my image. I looked at it and knew exactly what YouTube video it came from. My lips were synchronized with the words, but it didn\u2019t sound like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the real Karen Flowers, hair-care influencer and founder of Curl House. She is not selling life insurance.<\/p>\n

Rogue gangs in far-off countries are stealing the images of social media stars and repurposing them for their own purposes \u2014 often to create fabricated ads for products they\u2019ve never heard of. Influencers, whose livelihood is dependent on their hard-won credibility and relationships with their followers, are finding themselves powerless to stop it.<\/p>\n

This is a fake AI ad featuring Karen Flowers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s horrifying,\u201d Flowers said.<\/p>\n

$893 million fleeced<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to quantify exactly how big the problem is, but Google recently sued<\/a> a Chinese network called Outsider\u00a0Enterprise. <\/p>\n

The alleged cybercrime group is accused of using Google\u2019s artificial intelligence tools to make phony websites and push out more than 100,000 financial scams. Meanwhile, according to the FBI, copycatting was used by cybercriminals to leech Americans <\/a>out of some $893 million in 2025 alone.<\/p>\n

The trend of stealing people\u2019s likenesses started with celebrities. For years, in a low-tech version of the scam, criminals have been making social media accounts that appear to belong to celebrities and then contacting people pretending to be them, asking for money or gift cards.<\/p>\n

Over the last year or so, Oprah Winfrey<\/a>, Kim Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow and other celebs have all had their images hijacked and used in deepfake videos, often selling unlikely products.<\/p>\n

Flowers\u2019 image was heisted, above, and used to promote a life insurance company.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Taylor Swift <\/a>was made to look like she was leading an online giveaway of pricey Le Creuset cookware. YouTube star MrBeast <\/a>appeared to be hawking iPhones for $2 each if \u201cyou\u2019re one of the lucky 10,000 people,\u201d according to one video. He later went to X to blast \u201cthe deepfake scam of me<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even the genial Tom Hanks has been hit<\/a>. In 2023, he was turned into a pitchman for a dental plan. \u201cI have nothing to do with it,\u201d he warned fans on Instagram.<\/p>\n

This is a digitally faked image of Taylor Swift, designed to make people believe that she is giving away pricey cookware.<\/p>\n

The year prior, entrepreneur and TV personality Bethenny Frankel sued TikTok <\/a>over her image being used without permission. She accused the platform of failing to stop deepfake ads that, according to NBC News<\/a>, showed her selling counterfeit designer cardigans \u201cwith which [Frankel has] no affiliation,\u201d and cited harm to her personal brand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to NBC News, Frankel put up a TikTok post \u201cwith the intent to inform consumers about the deception,\u201d only for TikTok to remove it, deeming the post \u201cabusive.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you wonder who the real Arielle Lorre is, this posting from the popular skinfluencer aims to make it clear. ARIELLE LORRE \/ Instagram<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has to be addressed,\u201d Frankel said on \u201cGood Morning America.\u201d \u201cThe bigger issue is TikTok and the wild, wild west of social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case went into arbitration, and Frankel\u2019s people said they \u201cdon\u2019t have information on where the lawsuit currently stands.\u201d TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood Morning America\u201d ran a statement from TikTok that, in part, said, \u201cWe have strict policies to both protect people\u2019s hard-earned intellectual property and keep misleading content off TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fighting back<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unlike A-listers and huge reality stars, influencers and \u201cmicro-celebrities\u201d often lack the means to fight back, and tracking down the scammers can be next to impossible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked up the company [that\u00a0had the digitally recreated version of me] and it took me to a shell company,\u201d Flowers said. \u201cI could never reach them. I didn\u2019t know where to send a cease-and-desist letter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kara Mendelsohn went from Calvin Klein executive to fashion influencer to scam victim.<\/p>\n

Finally, a consumer advocate from her hometown news station in Virginia stepped in and got YouTube to take down the bogus commercial.<\/p>\n

YouTube did not respond to a request for comment, though Flowers, who has 102,000 followers on the platform, acknowledged, \u201cI don\u2019t blame YouTube<\/a>. I feel like these companies are catching up with AI, which is here to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the bogus version of Gwyneth Paltrow, she \u201cjust launched a massive Goop giveaway.\u201d According to the real Paltrow, this is not true. McAfee \/ Facebook<\/p>\n

Kara Mendelsohn<\/a>, a fashion influencer with 125,000 Instagram followers who\u00a0worked for Calvin Klein in the 1990s, has also had her image stolen and used against her wishes.<\/p>\n

She posted a still from one of the ads to Instagram Stories, writing, \u201cThis is NOT me!!! This company has stolen my image and my voice to create this AI ad. There is also one for a GLP1 that is NOT me! I hate this and Instagram does nothing to take this down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oprah Winfrey was deepfaked, and the artificial version of her was saddled with a message she would never send out.<\/p>\n

Spotting scams<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meta \u2014 which owns Instagram and Facebook \u2014 told The Post that identifying this sort of content can be a challenge as technology constantly evolves, but said it is continually working to improve its systems and get a step ahead.<\/p>\n

The company advises users to consider several factors to try and determine if content has been created as a deepfake. They include checking the trustworthiness of the account sharing the content and looking for details that might appear unnatural.<\/p>\n

Rihanna is one of several celebs whose images were used for faked ads promoting side hustles that were too good to be true.<\/p>\n

Image theft can sneak up on a person at the most unexpected times. Nassia Matsa, a London-based model and journalist, was riding the city\u2019s Underground when, she told The Post, \u201cI\u00a0saw an ad with someone that looked like me. It felt very uncanny. The image came from an editorial that I did for a Paris-based magazine back in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The entity that did the phony ad] chose diverse models to seem modern and relevant, a very performative act, since none of us got paid or even consented to be part of this ad.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently, \u201cskinfluencer\u201d Arielle Lorre, 40 and based in Los Angeles, was disturbed to find\u00a0a deepfake\u00a0of herself gushing about a skincare product from a company called Skaind, which she had never worked with, in an interview. The man giving the interview in the promotion posted to X that his image had also been stolen.<\/p>\n

The journalist and model Nassia Matsa was surprised to see \u201cherself\u201d in an ad she did not know about. Courtesy of Nassia Matsa<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can imagine how unsettling it is to see yourself saying things you\u2019ve never said, sitting in an interview you\u2019ve never sat in,\u201d she told Inc. magazine<\/a>. \u201cNot only is it illegal, but it also dilutes my brand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue underscores what can happen when bad actors use social media and artificial intelligence for their own nefarious means. It all drives home a point made by Frankel on \u201cGood Morning America\u201d\u00a0about videos online.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want people to know you must enter at your own risk,\u201d Frankel said. \u201cYou must not operate freely. You must be protected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karen Flowers, a 49-year-old beauty influencer based in Virginia, was recently sent a YouTube ad by her cousin.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":961104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,59543,37971,345,242,158,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-961103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-hackers","tag-influencers","tag-social-media","tag-tech","tag-technology","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116988236719201045","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/961104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}