DeepfakeHigh
Purported Unauthorized Deepfakes of Norman Swan and Others Circulated in Online Supplement Campaigns
- Occurred
- May 21, 2025
- Published
- Jul 3, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
According to an ABC News (Australia) 7.30 report, a second wave of deepfake scam ads impersonating Norman Swan and other public figures circulated widely on Meta platforms in 2025, promoting unproven health supplements. The campaign featured new voice-cloned videos and more impersonation tactics, and it reportedly contributed to financial and health harms. Investigators reportedly linked the ads to businesses in Australia and New Zealand using deceptive redirects and alias branding.
Developers
- Deepfake technology developers
- Synthetic audio generation technology developers
Deployers
- Unidentified actors linked to Vellec Group NZ Ltd
- Unidentified actors linked to Healthy Life Choices NZ Ltd
- Unidentified actors linked to Apex United Pty Ltd
Harmed parties
- Rebel Wilson
- Public trust in medical guidance
- Norman Swan
- Jonathan Shaw
- General public of Australia
- Australians with chronic health problems
- Adele
Tags
- Deepfake
- Voice cloning
- Synthetic media
- Impersonation
- Celebrity impersonation
- Medical impersonation
- Medical misinformation
- Health misinformation
- Consumer fraud
- Supplement fraud
- Diabetes treatment scams
- Consumer deception
- Unauthorized endorsement
- Financial fraud
- Subscription scam
- Identity misuse
- Social media misinformation
- Australia
- New Zealand
- variant
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: Deepfake technology used for deceptive advertising causing financial and health harms.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8