Justin Trudeau deepfake ad promoting ‘robot trader’ pulled off YouTube

A deepfake advertisement depicting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s likeness promoting a financial “robot trader” has been pulled off YouTube.

Google, which owns the online video-sharing and social media platform, told Global News it also suspended the advertiser accounts associated with these “scams.”

Deepfakes are realistic yet fabricated images, audio and video created by using artificial intelligence. Recent advances in the technology have made them more indistinguishable from human-created content.

“Protecting our users is a top priority and we have strict policies that govern the ads on our platform,” a spokesperson said.

“These scams are prohibited on our platforms and when we find ads that breach our policies we take immediate action, including removing the ads and suspending advertiser accounts when necessary, as we did in this case.”

Global News came across the deepfake ad on Wednesday morning. Running about two-and-a-half minutes, the ad depicted manipulated audio of Trudeau’s voice endorsing a website and product for “passive income from $10,000 CAD per month.”

It was taken out by “J.U. Lanz” in Switzerland, the YouTube page showed. The ad directed users to a webpage for the product.

The audio played over visuals of Trudeau, including what appears to be generated video of his face that attempted to physically mimic the audio that was playing.

“I am confident in the robot trader and guarantee financial results to every investor,” the audio of Trudeau’s voice is heard saying.

“Embrace the future of wealth creation and act now. Visit our website and start the registration process. The door to financial prosperity is open – are you ready to step through it? Visit the site, and register.”

The images and audio of Trudeau were