If you’ve been on TikTok lately, you might have been served a video advertisement featuring Joe Rogan and one of his guests on his immensely popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. In the clip, Rogan boasts about a “libido booster for men” supplement called Alpha Grind, going so far as to tell listeners exactly what to type in to find the product on Amazon.
Rogan is one of the most popular podcasters out there, with over ten million listeners per episode of his show. A brand endorsement like that would be a big get and likely a very expensive one for any product. Only Joe Rogan did not endorse Alpha Grind on his show. The clip featured in the TikTok video ad is a likely deepfake, an AI creation with the intent to make it appear as if Rogan endorsed the product in order to boost sales.
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The video ad was posted and promoted on TikTok by a user going by the name @mikesmithtrainer. When Mashable first reviewed the TikTok account, the publicly posted videos consisted of testimonial clips of supposed everyday Alpha Grind consumers. As of publishing time, the @mikesmithtrainer(Opens in a new tab) account is no longer accessible on TikTok.
A TikTok spokesperson confirmed to Mashable that the company “removed these videos under our harmful misinformation policy.” TikTok also banned the account.
On Twitter, user @JimmyFarley00 reposted(Opens in a new tab) the fake Joe Rogan clip and the tweet instantly went viral. The Twitter video has been viewed more than 5 million times and a number of users in the tweet’s replies reportedly saw the ad on TikTok when it was still live. However, as of Feb. 15, the suspected Rogan deepfake has also been removed from Twitter. When trying to view the video, users are met with a prompt that claims the clip has been removed due to “a report from the copyright owner.” Mashable has included an upload(Opens in a new tab) of the clip that is still live above.
When first confronted with the suspected deepfake Rogan video, some Twitter users didn’t even realize what they were looking out for at first. Andrew D. Huberman, the guest on Rogan’s podcast who is also featured in the video, entered(Opens in a new tab) the conversation to point out(Opens in a new tab) to those users that the conversation showcased in the video never actually happened.
“They created a false conversation,” Huberman explained in the replies to the clip. “We were talking about something very different.”
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In the clip, it’s clear that some parts of the conversation are lifted from the podcast. The video is heavily edited and takes bits and pieces from the actual episode. The clip then also weaves what is likely completely fabricated AI deepfake audio and footage of Rogan endorsing the Alpha Grind product during their conversation, which — pending analysis from an expert — would mean the hoaxer used machine learning to replicate Rogan’s voice and paired that with deceptive video editing or additional AI fakery to match-up his facial features to what he’s saying.
Deepfakes aren’t new and have been worrying ethicists and disinformation experts for years now. However, there is a renewed interest in all things AI since OpenAI’s impressive ChatGPT AI chatbot burst onto the scene showing just how much advancement has been made with machine learning technology.
TikTok actually banned(Opens in a new tab) deepfake videos on the platform back in 2020, however, it’s unclear how much the policy is enforced. When Mashable reached out, a TikTok spokesperson highlighted the platforms Community Guidelines which disallow “Digital Forgeries (Synthetic Media or Manipulated Media) that mislead users by distorting the truth of events and cause significant harm to the subject of the video, other persons, or society.”
It should be noted that not all deepfakes are used for nefarious purposes, and that the technology can be used for creative videos meant to simply entertain viewers. However, deepfakes have been consistently thrust into the spotlight for their more negative use cases. Just last month, a popular Twitch streamer went viral after he mistakenly revealed(Opens in a new tab) in a livestream that he purchased non-consensual deepfake porn of other Twitch streamers.
Mashable has reached out to TikTok for more information on the Joe Rogan TikTok ad and the removal of the account that posted it. We will update this piece when we hear back.
