Deepfake ads featuring Søren Brostrøm led to medication errors

Deepfake videos featuring former Danish Health Authority director Søren Brostrøm have led two men in their 80s to buy a medicine and use it incorrectly, DR reported, citing Politiken.

The videos have circulated on social media as advertisements for a specific medicine. The two men believed the ads were genuine recommendations from Brostrøm.

In one artificially generated video, Brostrøm appears sitting on a sofa on the television programme Go’ Morgen Danmark and praising the advertised medicine. One of the men’s doctors told Politiken it was impossible to explain to him what a scam or deepfake was, or that a video on social media could be false.

Brostrøm, who became widely known as director of the Danish Health Authority during the coronavirus pandemic, is now a senior adviser to the World Health Organization. He told the newspaper that he has never appeared in advertisements for medicines or natural remedies and said he was extremely upset by the incident.

He described the misleading advertisements as frightening and said they needed to be regulated. Such advertising is already illegal in Denmark, he said, adding that social media platforms must take the issue seriously.

Bente Klarlund Pedersen, a professor of integrated medicine at the University of Copenhagen, has also been misused in fake videos and advertisements. Politiken reported that ads currently circulating appear to show her recommending products for tinnitus, erectile problems, fatty liver and obesity.