Fact Check: Video showing BBC Hindi news anchor promoting Beast’s online casino gaming app is AI generated, morphed
Jimmy Donaldson, better known online as Mr Beast has 232 million YouTube subscribers, more than any other individual creator on the platform. He is known for his fast-paced and high-production videos which feature elaborate challenges and large giveaways.
AI video of BBC presenter
Jimmy Donaldson, better known online as Mr Beast has 232 million YouTube subscribers, more than any other individual creator on the platform. He is known for his fast-paced and high-production videos which feature elaborate challenges and large giveaways.
A video was shared by an Instagram user featuring Mr Beast along with others and BBC Hindi News presenter Sarika Singh. The news presenter is seen promoting an online casino funded by Mr Beast. In the video, we can also see Mr Beast presenting a room full of money which is claimed to be the treasure ready to be given away by him.
Fact Check:
The claim is False. The video is created using AI technology along with merging different videos published on the YouTube channel of Mr Beast.
When we searched for the Online Casino of Mr. Beast, we found several reports stating that a fraudulent gambling app used an AI version of Mr Beast as well as BBC news readers. Fake competition scammers and fraudulent gambling companies have started to use images of the star to trick people into downloading apps or giving away their cash.
X (Twitter) user moekordofani on his handle shared a post warning the audience about an ad that was promoting a fraudulent gambling application using deepfake videos of Mr Beast and BBC reporting to convince netizens and said that he created the app with the caption: “AI is out of control, and fraudulent gambling applications are starting to use it to produce false adverts. AI-created videos impersonating prominent news organizations like the BBC and famous YouTube personalities like Mr. Beast to alert you to these false adverts. Careful”
This video is similar to the viral video which is a Hindi version.
When searched further, we found a tweet by Sarika Singh, a BBC News Presenter, with the caption “Beware of these ads, it’s a dangerous misuse of #ArtificialIntelligence”. She shared the same video with the text stating, “This is a deep fake or some AI trick, whatever it is but it's dangerous. How smartly they have used my voice and news clip and posted an ad over it, which I have never done.”
When we extracted the visuals from the video and searched them using Google search, we found that one of the visuals seen in the viral video is from the video published on Mr Beast's YouTube channel in the year 2021 where he is seen giving away money.
We found that the visuals of Mr Beast discussing with other YouTubers are taken from a video published by a YouTube channel named Colin and Samir where Mr Beast is seen discussing a lot about himself and his videos and other struggles. But not about the online casino game.
Here is another video warning viewers about the deepfake scams with the title “MrBeast deepfake scams are out of control”. The description states “MrBeast AI scams are on the rise, with more and more advertisers using deepfakes to scam young people into downloading gambling and casino apps with the promise to win thousands in an exclusive MrBeast giveaway.”
Hence the video published by the Instagram user is an AI-generated video, along with merging different videos, published on the YouTube channel of Mr Beast.