As companies like Meta push increasingly realistic AI-generated videos, the worst parts of social media and AI are converging. In what appears to be a new dropshipping scam flooding Instagram and TikTok, accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers are posting AI-generated videos depicting teens getting bullied for trying to sell Christian apparel alongside links to buy the goods. It’s part of a growing phenomenon of fabricated accounts that are using AI to stoke outrage and then drive sales.
It’s not clear who’s behind these specific accounts and if the products actually get shipped (many of the products on the linked websites also appear on other online retailers’ sites). And the videos exclude labels required by Meta and TikTok to disclose that AI is used. But after Semafor reached out to TikTok and Meta, some of the accounts were no longer available online.