Hi! Just a reminder that I’ll be teaching our monthly members-only workshop next Wednesday, January 28th at 12:00 PM ET. I share tips for investigate affiliate marketing fraud on TikTok (and elsewhere). I’m joined by a former threat intelligence researcher for Meta and Google, who will show how you can use an LLM to assist with this type of research. Reply to this email and I’ll send an invitation so it’s on your calendar. And here is the Meet link: meet.google.com/rwa-skrd-job
FYI: I’ll be hosting our monthly members-only workshop on Wednesday, January 28th at 12:00 PM ET. I share tips for investigate affiliate marketing fraud on TikTok (and elsewhere). I’m joined by a former threat intelligence researcher for Meta and Google, who will show how you can use an LLM to assist with this type of research. Upgrade now to join us and to access the recording and everything we publish.
Taylor Coffman met Dr. John Valentine for the first time when a family member sent her one of his videos.
“It’s the classic story of arguing with a family member over something that’s just going on in their minds,” she said.
The argument was over hydrogen peroxide, and Dr. Valentine was a big fan. His one-minute Instagram video, which attracted more than 275,000 likes and more than 20,000 comments, advised people to soak their feet in the liquid for 10 minutes before going to bed.
“By morning, your entire immune system resets. After a week, chronic infections disappear,” he said.
Coffman, an actor who writes about health on Substack and makes video contents while battling a rare disease, he acknowledged the claims as nonsense. She texted a duck emoji to her relative, short for quack.
“My family member texted me, ‘Well nothing you’re saying is investigating hydrogen peroxide and this is a doctor and not you,’” Coffman said.
Only he’s not a doctor. He’s not even human. The Dr. Valentine account (@healthylifesage) uses an AI avatar in surgical scrubs to deliver often questionable health advice to more than 1.3 million followers.
As for the report’s claims about hydrogen peroxide’s healing powers, Dr. Margot Burnell, president of the Canadian Medical Association, told Indicator they are “misleading and disturbing.”
The fake Dr. Valentine is one of more than 20 accounts identified by Indicator that feature synthetic doctors and medical professionals on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok and YouTube. They collectively have over 8.5 million followers or subscribers and often receive tens or even hundreds of thousands of engagements on their content.
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