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Shoddy AI clones of celebrities including Joe Rogan, Taylor Swift, Steve Harvey, Ice Cube, Andrew Tate, Oprah, and The Rock are hawking Medicare and Medicaid scams to millions of people on YouTube with seemingly little intervention from Google. Ads connected to this scam have been viewed more than 195 million times on YouTube according to a playlist of more than 1,600 videos compiled by a tipster who shared them with 404 Media.
YouTube has taken down few, if any, of the ads, which have mostly been uploaded over the course of the last three months and have been widely discussed by outraged YouTubers and YouTube users both on the platform and off of it.
“Hi guys, it’s Taylor Swift. Remember those stimulus checks? Well there’s a new thing going viral. The state is giving these $6,400 holiday packages to cover all your bills,” one of the ads, read by an AI voice clone of Taylor Swift, says. “It’s a holiday boost due to inflation, and you won’t need to pay it back. You’ll have so much leftover cash for rent, gas and groceries, you’ll be approved for your holiday stimulus as long as you don’t have Medicare or Medicaid. Just visit the website, answer two quick questions, and a representative will handle the rest, then you’ll get your stimulus package in like two or three days. I left the link below so you can claim yours too.”
That ad and another with Swift have more than 300,000 views each. There are at least four clones of Joe Rogan, three of Andrew Tate, three of Oprah and The Rock, one of Hailey Bieber, and one of the host of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast Alex Cooper.