Why deepfakes of foreigners are selling goods on Chinese social media
Marketplace Tech
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2024
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A couple of weeks ago, Marketplace’s China correspondent Jennifer Pak noticed a video deepfake of the Hollywood actor Chris Evans on social media. The AI-generated Evans explains in Chinese how money is at the root of life’s problems. It’s part of a recent trend on mainland China, where deepfakes of foreigners give advice, discuss politics and sell goods online. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Pak about what’s behind the trend and later, the state of online misinformation in China.
This conversation was part of “Marketplace Tech’s” limited series, “Decoding Democracy.” Watch the full episode here or on our YouTube channel.
Transcript
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| 0:25.0 | Captain America does China. |
| 0:28.0 | Kind of. |
| 0:29.0 | From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. |
| 0:32.0 | I'm Lily Dramale. A couple of weeks ago, Marketplace's China correspondent Jennifer Pack |
| 0:47.0 | noticed a video deep fake of the Hollywood actor Chris Evans in one of her feeds. The Gereen Zecham fan me |
| 0:54.0 | and choosha and when |
| 0:55.0 | talk on the two-shoo-hoo |
| 0:59.0 | that's the AI-generated Evans, |
| 1:00.0 | in perfect Mandarin, |
| 1:02.0 | explaining that money is at the root of many of life's problems. |
| 1:06.0 | Videos like it are part of a trend on mainland China, deep fakes of foreigners giving advice, |
| 1:11.0 | talking politics, and selling stuff. |
| 1:13.7 | Jennifer tells me that some of them depict people way less famous than Evans. |
| 1:18.6 | Late last winter, I would say these videos of foreigners started popping up. Those include |
| 1:24.3 | even former Trump advisor Peter Navarro and other foreigners including |
| 1:29.2 | influencers who have said they found their likeness or their deep fakes being used in China. |
| 1:35.0 | Often talking about topics about life, career advice, love advice, and you know Russia, China relations and how good they are. |
| 1:44.0 | We think is because these topics are quite safe because China's internet is |
... |
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