Olga Loiek's AI-generated pro-Russia content goes viral in Chinese platforms

Her AI-generated videos were all over the internet speaking Mandarin and advocating for Russia, promoting Russian products, and being China's bonhomie.

People who saw Olga Loiek utter Mandarin on Chinese social media texted her truckloads of texts. Her YouTube channel had been recently updated with clips in 2023, when this incident occurred. 

Olga investigated the matter and discovered that multiple accounts had been created with her face but different names. Generated AI created profiles with different identities, such as April, Natasha, Sofia, and Stacy.

Having been victimized by mass identity theft, Olga expressed her frustration.

A Ukrainian girl, Olga Loiek, posted a video complaining that her face was used to synthesize Russian women using AI on a Chinese short video platform to peddle Russian food.
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In her words, "I don't want anyone to think I ever said these terrible things.". Using the face of a Ukrainian girl to promote Russia. There's no way to explain it."

There was a high percentage of accounts discovered on Chinese platforms Bilibili and Xiaohongshu. YouTube and Instagram's Chinese alternatives. Approximately 90% of the videos discussed China and Russia, the friendship between China and Russia, the importance of being strong allies, and advertisements for food.

She claims HeyGen developed the AI tool that responded to her fiancé's tweet, revealing that "over 4.9K videos were generated using her face and that it had been blocked.".

China's position on fake AI-generated videos 

According to Angela Zhang from the University of Hong Kong, these AI-generated fake videos have been on the platform for such a long time. Angela added that it's common in China.

A law and technology researcher from the University of Bologna and KU Leuven, Emmie Hine, stated in this regard, “It is unclear whether these accounts were coordinated under a collective purpose.

However, promoting a message in line with the government’s propaganda definitely benefits them.” Notably, the majority of Ukrainian girl videos have been removed from the platform.

In the wake of this, Olga advises her internet family to be cautious. She concludes, “I wanted to share my story; I wanted to make sure that people understood that not everything that you’re seeing online is real.”