For the first few months of its existence, the Pak Gov Update YouTube channel posted short, amateurish videos with clickbait titles about public pensions in Pakistan. Its biggest hit was a video called “Big information! Senior Citizen Pension Scheme || fedaral Cabnet Big Development” that received a relatively modest 18,000 views. (Typos theirs.)
Recently, however, Pak Gov Update’s production values and fortunes have improved.
Roughly two weeks ago, the channel started uploading videos about Sean “Diddy” Combs that use AI-generated thumbnails with false quotes attributed to celebrities like Usher and Jay-Z. One video is titled “Jay-Z Breaks His Silence on Diddy Controversy” and features a thumbnail of Jay-Z crying and holding up a CD above the quote “I WILL BE DEAD SOON.”
The nearly 30-minute video, which uses clips from TV news and other sources and AI-generated narration, has 113,000 views. Needless to say, it doesn’t contain any new information from Jay-Z and the rapper never said the quote that’s apparently attributed to him.
Pak Gov Update is one of 26 YouTube channels identified by Indicator that have used a mix of false claims and AI slop to cash in on the Diddy trial. The AI-infused channels generated nearly 70 million views from roughly 900 Diddy videos over the past 12 months, according to data gathered from YouTube. (Paying members can access a list of channels, the top 25 Diddy videos by views, and a folder with over 900 thumbnails.)
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