A fake sexually explicit video of podcast host Bobbi Althoff spread rapidly on X Tuesday afternoon, adding to the platform’s recent challenges in cracking down on deepfakes of female celebrities.
Althoff, a successful TikTok creator-turned-podcaster who has interviewed rappers including Drake and Offset on her show “The Really Good Podcast,” wrote in an Instagram story on Wednesday morning that “the reason I’m trending is 100% not me & is definitely AI generated.”
Deepfakes are a form of manipulated media that uses AI to edit previously existing content. Sexually explicit deepfakes like the one targeting Althoff often take the form of a stolen pornographic video where the original adult performer’s face is “swapped” with the victim’s face.
X has in recent weeks become a breeding ground for nonconsensual deepfakes following the viral spread in January of digitally created, sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift. Such content violates X’s nonconsensual nudity policy, which specifically prohibits “images or videos that superimpose or otherwise digitally manipulate an individual’s face onto another person’s nude body.”
X did not respond to a request for comment.
Posts depicting Althoff have remained up on X for nearly 24 hours, and new posts with the video continued to be published as of Wednesday afternoon, many of them soliciting likes and shares — an effort known as “engagement farming” that can sometimes be monetized.
Genevieve Oh, an independent internet researcher who has tracked the rise of deepfakes, shared data with NBC News on Wednesday that tracked more than 40 posts on X containing the Althoff deepfake video or links to the material. Only one of the posts had been removed for violating X’s rules, and the account that posted it was not banned. The posts Oh collected amassed more than 6.5 million views in less than 24 hours.
Oh also shared data that showed views of deepfakes of Althoff on specialized deepfake pornography websites spiked sharply after the video hit X.
Althoff did not respond to a request for comment.
Oh noted that the deepfake video of Althoff posted to X on Tuesday has since migrated to Reddit, too.
An NBC News review of dozens of recent X posts with Althoff’s name found that many of the posts showed signs of inauthentic activity and engagement farming, with many repeating the same caption verbatim that encouraged people to like the post in order to be sent a “leak ” of Althoff. “Bobbi Althoff leaks” was a recommended search term on X on Wednesday. Many of the posts also mentioned a “leak” of Rubi Rose, a rapper whose popularity grew around the same time as Althoff’s online presence. Referring to the material as “leaks” implies it is authentic, when it is actually manipulated media.
Some of the posts using this strategy are from X accounts that have blue check marks, which means they pay for X Premium. Premium accounts can elect to monetize the engagement on their posts.
Some verified accounts on X often use manipulated media to build sizable followings and then make money by promoting cryptocurrencies or other products.