Summary:
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Creators are finding themselves in deepfake ads, using images from past selfies and videos without permission.
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The deepfake ads are violating and unsettling for influencers, with scammers using their likeness to deceive followers.
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Scammers are making billions from deepfake scams, with social media impersonation leading to financial losses and privacy breaches.
Creators are opening their feeds and finding themselves in ads they never shot. Lifestyle blogger Emily Schuman, who has more than 500,000 Instagram followers, saw a sponsored post earlier this year showing her holding a vial of GLP-1 drugs for a telehealth company called Gala, The Guardian reported.
She’d never heard of the brand. The image came from a selfie she’d taken in her car and posted years earlier.
Her followers noticed before she did and flooded her inbox asking about the sponsorship. Then came an AI version of her with darker hair applying foundation for a cosmetics company, and TikTok posts using her face to promote a blood-testing startup.
“It’s so violating,” Schuman told The Guardian. The fakes look “just like me, but the upside down version.”
Superpower CEO Max Marchione said the TikTok post wasn’t a real ad and that his company reported the scammer behind it. Gala and Meroda Cosmetics didn’t respond to The Guardian’s requests for comment.
Creators make unusually easy targets. Years of vlogs and selfies give a model plenty to train on, and the payoff for scammers is borrowed trust that took someone else a decade to build.
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The money involved is real. Surfshark’s research team estimates consumers worldwide may have lost as much as $3.7 billion to deepfake scams in 2026, with social media impersonation accounting for roughly half. Security firm McAfee, which sells scam-detection tools, surveyed 8,600 people globally and found 72% of Americans had seen a fake celebrity or influencer endorsement. One in 10 lost money or personal data, averaging $525 a person.
A parallel version of the scam skips real people entirely. Media Matters documented TikTok Shop sellers generating casts of fake influencers and fake doctors to push unproven hair oils and debloat supplements, sometimes recycling the same synthetic face across accounts with different backstories.
Meta and TikTok both ban using AI to replicate someone’s identity. Enforcement is the problem. Schuman and her manager reported the GLP-1 ad and it took weeks of pushing before Meta pulled it. The cosmetics ad is reportedly still running.
Meta introduced stronger advertiser verification and a detection tool aimed at celebrity impersonation earlier this year. Meta didn’t respond to The Guardian’s requests for comment.
Some creators are trying the courts. Fashion influencer Molly Tranchin, known as FashionVeggie, sued underwear brand Eby, alleging it posted a deepfaked version of a video she’d delivered, altering her pose to expose her chest.
She dropped the suit over jurisdiction and plans to refile. An Eby spokesperson said the company will address the claims through the legal process.
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