Ukrainian influencer says Russian beauty popular in China stole her face

Ti Gong

A Ukrainian influencer recently experienced "face theft." Someone in China cloned her face and voice, using AI to create a fake beauty influencer from Russia.

On January 29, Olga Loiek posted a video titled "Somebody cloned me in China" on her YouTube channel, accusing someone of creating a non-existent Russian woman named "Natasha" on Chinese social media platforms that included Xiaohongshu (Red).

Natasha claimed to have lived in China for 8 years and spread slogans such as "want to marry a Chinese man."

"She (Natasha) has my face, my voice, and she speaks fluent Chinese," Olga said.

Angry at this, Olga complained to the major Chinese social media platforms, but after several weeks with no response, decided to publicly expose the matter on YouTube.

Ti Gong

In the video, she also pointed out that while her family and fellow Ukrainians are enduring the hardships of Russia-Ukraine war, she was being used by AI to promote the advantages of Russia.

The "Natasha" account currently has more than 140,000 followers, more than the real Olga has on Youtube, and also promotes Russian products to Chinese consumers.

Meanwhile, she also found that her face has multiple AI clones on the major Chinese social media platforms, and that other Internet celebrities have also been victims of face theft.

Many netizens left comments under her video expressing concern, and some said that judging from the number and diversity of fake accounts and hosts, it seems to have become an industry.

"There are specialized technology companies stealing real-life materials and integrating them, launching user templates, making it easy for ordinary people to make these fake videos and operate them," one comment said.

Others apologized to Olga for her experience, expressing shock and condemnation of such shameless commercial behavior, and claiming to have helped her report the problem to relevant Chinese platforms.