Speaking in slightly accented Mandarin, the woman announced that Chinese men should get married “us russian women“. In other videos on the Chinese short-video platform Douyin, she described how much she loves Chinese food and peddling salt and soap from her country. “The Russians will not cheat the Chinese,” she assured.
But her lip movements didn’t quite match the audio of the videos, which were recently posted to an account called “Ladina.”That’s because it’s a lens Shad ZahlaiAn Australian professional strategist with more than 1.7 million TikTok followers has used artificial intelligence to make changes. Video clips of Ms. Zakhlai were dubbed in Mandarin, giving the impression that she was hawking Russian products.
Welcome to a booming genre on Chinese social media: AI-manipulated videos that exploit young, purportedly Russian women to drum up support for Sino-Russian relations, stoke patriotic fervor or make money — sometimes all three Of.
It’s unclear who is behind many of the videos, but most end up directing viewers to links to products, suggesting their primary purpose is commercial. The main target audience appears to be nationalistic Chinese men.
The videos often feature hashtags such as “Russian wife” and “Russian beauty.” The women in the book describe the achievements of Chinese men or plead with them to save them from poverty or a less idyllic country.
Another set of videos featured a blonde woman describing her gratitude for coming to China.
“I really envy my Chinese friends. You are born with the most precious identity and the most profound and fascinating language in the world,” she said in a video posted on another platform, Xiaohongshu (similar to Instagram).
Another video showed the woman thanking the Chinese people for supporting Russia through its economic difficulties by buying her Russian chocolates. Over the past year, the whole world has been boycotting Russia, imposing various restrictions and difficulties on us. China is like a savior,” she said.
The videos look more natural, with the woman’s lips synced to fluent Mandarin. But they are also fake.They are recreated from videos posted on YouTube Olga Loika college student whose candid videos are about self-improvement and her gap year in Germany.
Ms. Loick does not speak Chinese. She said in an interview that she would never praise Russia in such a way. She is from Ukraine and some of her relatives are still there.
Producers of these videos are trying to capitalize on the market created by China’s current geopolitics, technology and public sentiment.
Relations between Russia and China have deepened significantly in recent years, with leaders Vladimir V. Putin and Xi Jinping declaring an “open-ended” partnership in the face of growing hostility from the West.Mr Putin visit beijing Last week, President Xi Jinping welcome him With great fanfare.
The use of foreign faces to praise China is also intended to stimulate national pride or nationalistic sentiments among Chinese audiences.Nationalist content has become one of The most reliable drivers of Internet traffic In China, in an environment of censorship, more and more topics are banned.
Say, this kind of nationalism – like nationalism around the world – often contains some kind of sexism. Zhang ChenchenProfessor of International Relations at Durham University, UK.
“This display of sexual objectification of young white women is a classic trope of gender nationalism or nationalist sexism,” Professor Zhang wrote in an email. “Viewers can reaffirm their ethnicity while watching this content ism and male pride.”
In several videos featuring Ms. Zahlai’s likeness, fake characters incoming call Her audience is Big Brother. The figure also noted that Russia would not sell the products in Japan or South Korea, two countries with tense relations with China.
The Chinese government often encourages online nationalism, but there is no indication that this has anything to do with deepfake videos (although some local governments Already cooperated with real Russian women promoting a similar message about Chinese attractiveness). There is also a small group of genuine Russian influencers on Chinese social media, many of whom are young women.
Many video makers may just be taking advantage of China Embrace live streaming and short video shopping.As artificial intelligence technology becomes more advanced, some Chinese companies have turned to From real salesperson to virtual salesperson To save money.
Artificially generated videos as a sales tactic will likely become more common because AI technology advances so quickly and becomes more accessible to the public, he said Haibing RoadProfessor at Santa Clara University, researching artificial intelligence governance.
Ms. Zahlai’s management company said in an email that the AI modifications were of “poor quality” and that they “may appear fake even to a casual viewer.” Some of the account’s videos had only a few dozen views, but a video discussing marrying a Russian woman had 22,000 views.
This doesn’t seem to matter. An automated counter that popped up in one of the account’s videos indicated that the brand of salt being promoted had been purchased 360,000 times on the platform.
When The New York Times contacted the TikTok account with the manipulated videos of Ms. Zahlai, the account holder confirmed in audio messages that he had produced the videos. “You set up three things: audio, video and mouth. You can make any video you want,” he said before unfriending the reporter.
The level of complexity varies.Some of the fake women look entirely computer-generated, with stiff movements and seemingly beautified The Sims. Some of the pieces, like those similar to Ms. Loick’s, are very good.
“Even though I knew it wasn’t me, the reality was scary,” Ms. Loick said. She recently discovered that more than 30 different social media accounts in China had stolen her image. “When I decided to create my YouTube channel, I was aware of the dangers of deepfakes, but I believed this was primarily a concern for prominent political and entertainment figures. Now I realize that anyone with a video of themselves online could be affected.”
Ms. Loiek reported Xiaohongshu and Made a YouTube video about her experience. Eventually, most of the profiles using her likeness were shut down.
Social media platforms have stepped up censorship in recent weeks, removing AI videos or labeling some of them. China was the first country to enact regulations on generated artificial intelligence, and on the surface, some of its policies are stricter than those in the West.
But countries around the world are struggling to enforce their rules. Spotting wrongdoing can be especially difficult in China, where the Internet is a closed environment and many foreign social media outlets are banned.
Foreign influencers are unlikely to know their images have been used on Chinese social media and file copyright complaints. A 35-year-old man said Chinese platforms may also not exploit overseas content when checking AI manipulation. The man had two AI-generated accounts of Russian women. The man, who gave only his surname, Chen, said he earned about $1,000 a month from the accounts before he closed them in March over concerns about increased regulation.
But more are still surging. Professor Lu of Santa Clara University said Russia may be a hot topic now, but the practice could soon spread to the next trend.
“The people behind this will manipulate any topic possible to get people’s attention,” he said. “Showing parents ‘how to get into top schools’; for young ladies, ‘how to be beautiful’. I believe that in the future everyone will use AI technology to customize topics so that videos can attract specific audiences.”
