Loading summary
Transcript50 lines
- [00:01]
A
This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up, required compatibility and availability. Veris18
- [00:26]
B
Someone came out with a little slip of paper with a phone number and he was just told, call the FBI and I don't have any more information. This is stuff the authorities use in criminal cases. This isn't messing around. Hello and welcome to the 404 Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist founding company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404 Media Co as well as bonus content every single week. Subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. Gain access to that content@404 media co. Also do remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can watch all of our episodes, including this one. Right now, subscribe@YouTube.com 04mediaco I'm your host, Joseph, and with me are the other 404 Media co founders, the first being Emmanuel Mayberg.
- [01:30]
C
Hello.
- [01:31]
B
And Jason Kebler.
- [01:33]
D
Hello. Sam was just here, but she has died.
- [01:37]
C
Yeah.
- [01:37]
B
Rest in peace. Yeah. Sam's wifi is not able to handle the podcast today, so I just had to rerecord the intro. That's why I was laughing at the same time. But Sam will be with us next time. What she was going to do, she was going to tell you about the 404 Media Party, which we did mention before, but we just want to give an update because tickets are selling. Sam says we will sell out, even though it's a while away. It's a panel on Thursday, September 3rd, and you can get livestream access to that. You can also come in person. And then there is the party the day after Friday, September 4, at Freeze Brewing in New York. There is a link again to the details in the show notes, so please go check that out. And if you do want to come, make sure you get a ticket because yes, we will absolutely sell out. All right, to this week's stories. Emmanuel, do you want to take us through this one that I wrote?
- [02:36]
C
Yeah. The headline for this is, quote, the government hopes to set a precedent. An interview with the man Charged for allegedly wiping his graphene OS phone. So this man, Samuel Tunick, tell me who he is and what happened to him when he landed in an airport last year.
- [02:56]
B
Yeah, so Samuel arrives in an Airport in January 2025. He was returning to the US from a vacation in the Dominican Republic. And he doesn't know this, but DHS ahead of time sends a warning to the airport and says, hey, essentially we are monitoring this person. We would like you to stop him at the border. And we really, really want to get a hold of his phone. I'm paraphrasing what his lawyer told me and obviously we'll get into more specifics. But he gets to the airport with that context, the officials there asking a bunch of questions such as, can we search your bags? He says no, they do it anyway, as will become apparent. And as listeners probably know, the airport is a very unusual place when it comes the US and what can be searched and what can't. They go through his bags, don't find anything of note or illegal or anything like that. They ask to search his person. He says no, they do that as well. He asked for a lawyer multiple times during this, and that is denied, even though he has the phone number of a lawyer on him. And then they get to the phone and these, I believe, Customs and border protection officials really, really want to search that phone. They ask him to hand over the passcode. He declines to do so. There is a long back and forth where they say, look, we're going to get your phone one way or another. Like, we're probably going to break into it and all of that sort of thing, so why not just make it easier? And Samuel eventually does give over a code which one of the officers types into the device. But then rather than unlocking the phone, his lawyer told me it went to a blank screen and then it displayed the GrapheneOS logo. We'll talk about graphene in a minute. But basically what had happened was that the phone was wiped when the official entered that code. It didn't unlock it. It wiped everything on the phone and basically returning it to a factory state. And obviously that, well, I would say that probably greatly annoyed the officials who were trying to gain access to it. And then, not to get too far ahead, but then that is what these charges relate to, that he came to this airport, he was being searched there, provided the code, it wipes the phone, and now he's being charged with that. Although I'll just stress there's no warrant for this phone. There's no specific evidence the authorities have said that they need to go after. It's not like you have evidence of XYZ on your phone, hence we need to get it. He's being charged just for the wiping itself.
- [05:49]
C
Before we continue, I think you should explain why is Samuel even a person of interest? Is he a spy for a different country? Is he on America's most Wanted list? What is the deal with Samuel?
- [06:01]
B
Yeah, so we actually covered this case a while back. We broke news of it like last year in November or December when I got a hold of the indictment. And at the time it was man is being charged for allegedly wiping his phone. And so we couldn't include much of this context, which is in response to your question, even though I knew a lot of wasn't clear enough to report. But now we can say that Samuel is part of the Stop Cop City activist movement in Atlanta, where I'm not going to go into everything about that. I'm sure people are aware of it, but basically there's a grassroots movement that was protesting against the development of a law enforcement training facility on a certain piece of ground in Atlanta. And the protests range from, you know, just signs and going to areas and protesting and that sort of thing. And then there are some sections of that movement that are violent as well. Again, there's no allegation that Samuel is part of that. It's just that is the overarching context is that he is part of this movement and authorities have really, really clamped down on that. And when I spoke to Samuel about this case, which I think is the only interview he's given about this, as far as I know, he put it squarely in this context that he is an activist and he's been targeted for that reason. Yeah, no, he's not a spy for China being stopped at the border and he's wiped evidence of that from his phone. All of the evidence points to the authorities were targeting him for his connection to this activist movement, although not alleging he actually did any sort of crimes as part of that.
- [07:57]
C
So let's talk about grapheneos. I want you to explain what it is, but if you can situate it next to or in comparison to some of these other privacy oss or privacy phones, how does it fit into that ecosystem? And then also specifically, what does this feature that he used that he eventually was charged for?
- [08:21]
B
Yeah, so GrapheneOS is a security and privacy focused operating system. It is a version of Android in that it will run on Android phones. So you'll put it on a Google Pixel or you'll put it on some other modern Android device. You do have to get kind of specific hardware sort of similar in the same sort of way as when you would buy, not buy, when you would use the operating system cubes, which is a version of Linux. And it's very security focused. You need a specific type of phone or type of computer to be able to run these operating systems. So you do that. But the key thing is you don't buy graphene os or if you do, you're a little bit of a sucker because you can just go and download it. I've done this many, many times and no longer do you have to go through a painful process of like flashing a ROM and getting it to your phone and unlocking the bootloader and that sort of thing. I mean, you might have to do some of those steps. But the last time I installed GrapheneOS on a phone, I don't know, a couple of years ago at this point, maybe you plug it in and the installation is all done via the web browser. It's like magic. It's really, really impressive where you can plug it in, you maybe do a few limited commands and then you are installing a security focused operating system on your phone via the web browse on your computer. As for those benefits, they're big on the de googling aspect of it, so they remove a bunch of Google services. The Play Store isn't on there as far as I can remember. A lot of other protections around privacy as well doesn't. Or when it comes to connecting to certain phone networks as well. You don't want to get shoved down to a 2G phone network because that's going to be less secure and maybe you can be tracked. So it doesn't allow that, that sort of thing. It protects the kernel, as in that is hardened, which is sort of the beating heart of the operating system, where if a hacker gets into the kernel, you're kind of screwed. So it has a lot of protections there. But obviously most importantly for this case, and I would think importantly for a lot of users, is this wipe command where you can type in your normal PIN and they'll just unlock the phone as normal. Or you can type in a what they call a duress pin and that will wipe the phone. They call it a duress pin because there's this classic problem of well, I have the fanciest encryption in the world with the world's longest password. If a guy comes at me with a hammer and he's like, give me your password. Well, I'm probably going to give him the password. Right. Or in this case if you're being compelled by authorities to hand it over. So that's what the duress password does, what it's used for. And from all the evidence available, and I do want to stress like this is a charge, so Samuel allegedly did it, of course, and like that is very, very important. But his lawyer did tell me when this official entered this code, the phone went to a blank screen and then the GrapheneOS logo appeared. Like from that, it does seem like it was a wipe command. The last thing I'll just say is that you asked about these other privacy phones and we've covered a bunch of those which are often used by organized crime drug traffickers. Phantom Secure, Anchor Chat, Sky Secure. I would not put grapheneos in the same bucket as those. Those phones used by straight up criminals. They're very expensive, thousands of dollars for a six month or a 12 month subscription. They're sold primarily to a closed ecosystem of criminals. They do have wipe commands as well, but you have to usually contact somebody at Phantom Secure or somewhere else to do the wipe for you. That's how it's also different to icloud where you can just sort of do that yourself as well. But graphene is different in that it's you typing in the code or giving the code to someone and it's free to use and free to download. Like there are companies that just rip off graphene and then try to sell it to drug traffickers, but they're not the same as graphene. Graphene is making this software available to anybody who wants to. Who wants to download it.
- [12:49]
C
Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. It's like you reported a lot about these privacy phones and oss that are marketed to criminals essentially. And this is not that it's not in that world. It's not in that world where like people are personally selling the phones to organize crime. This is kind of a thing that's easily accessible. You can imagine journalists using it, activists like Samuel using it and so on. So initially we couldn't report all the details about the case. What is the new stuff that we could publish recently?
- [13:26]
B
Yeah, so I obviously did research on Samuel before the initial article and I knew of his activist connections. Right. But yeah, at the time there was. So all we had was the indictment was man charged with wiping phone. It's like I can't really do much more than that at the moment. And I think I explained that in the behind the blog that we published at the time. But the new stuff here is that his lawyers are filing or have filed a motion to suppress. They're trying to get the evidence thrown out here for a bunch of legal reasons that we don't really need to get into. But I will continue to cover in the future. And as part of that, there was a hearing, and it was in Atlanta, and a local journalist there who published in the Guardian went to this hearing. And then we heard a bunch more stuff like, hey, it was using graphene, some details about the airport, that sort of thing, which I had rumblings of, but I couldn't use. So it's very, very useful that there was a local journalist there who was able to go to this hearing, because I can't just go to. Well, I guess I could do, but I can't really just go to Alanza on the off chance that this information is going to come out. So there's that sort of stuff. And then for this article, I mean, I got to speak to Samuel directly and ask him, like, straight up, what happened? How do you feel about this? What is the context, you think of this charge and the attempted search of your phone? And that was very, very useful to tell readers, like, this is not a normal case. In fact, this is a very abnormal case. This is like an extraordinarily strange case, really. And talking to Samuel and his lawyer is like how I was able to tell that in this piece.
- [15:13]
C
So to the point of this being a strange case, I think at the center of that is the question of what is the alleged crime? Like, what did Samuel do that he's in trouble?
- [15:26]
B
Yeah. So what he didn't do is obstruction of justice, which is what I think a lot of people would go to. And when I've seen people who sell phones to drug traffickers, for example, actually be charged for wiping a phone. Like, it's come up in the Phantom Secure case. It came up in the ALAM case as well. These people were charged for obstruction of justice specifically because the feds knew there was evidence of drug trafficking on these phones. And then they did a wipe command. Well, you're deleting evidence. And now we do that. Samuel's not being charged with that. He's being charged with this other thing, which basically says you. I'm finding the quote here, he was indicted for allegedly destroying, quote, the digital contents of a Google Pixel phone. And like, that's it. It doesn't really say that you've removed evidence of X, Y, Z, because again, they don't know what's on the phone. It is purely a charge for destroying the contents of a phone, which I'd never seen before. I've literally never ever heard of that. When I spoke to Samuel's lawyer as well, he said, well, we only ever found one other case, and it was a drug trafficking case. But he's, you know, a federal public defender in a pretty busy district, and he had basically never heard of this except one other case. It is really, really, really, really strange that he's being charged with this particular sort of crime.
- [16:56]
C
So as you say, the airport is this, like, space in the country where you have less rights. The authorities can really pin you down. And that's what happens to Samuel. But he claims that there is a whole bunch of surveillance that he was subject to before this, this moment. What does he think or what does he claim that has been happening to him before this?
- [17:27]
B
Yeah, so Samuel kind of took me back in time and he went to this point where he was just trying to get a job working, I think, on a Christmas tree lot, like selling or cutting Christmas trees or something like that. And because part of that work technically took place on school grounds, he had to get a background check. And he doesn't have a criminal conviction. He doesn't have a criminal record, so assumed it would be fine. He applied for the background check, went through those steps, and it was denied and wasn't really sure why. So he contacted Atlanta Public Schools, and they didn't really have much information at all beyond someone came out with a little slip of paper with a phone number, and he was just told, call the FBI and I don't have any more information for you. He did do that, or rather a lawyer working on his behalf did. Didn't really get any more information that way, but it was only later through his lawyer and through some, you know, other sources of information. Just as I think stuff was coming out in the news, there was a camera put facing outside and looking at a house he used to live in. And I think a lot of other activists were here as well. And later that property was raided. I think more pertinent here is that through his lawyer, he learned that his cell phone records were subpoenaed. And he got an email from Google saying that his Gmail was subpoenaed as well. So this is stuff the authorities use in criminal cases. And these are, I mean, not the most powerful tools of the U.S. government. But this isn't messing around. This is like, we're going to go get your emails, we're going to get your phone records. This isn't cursory search. This is like a pretty deep fishing expedition targeted against him and presumably others as well. And I mean the way that Samuel pull it to me was that quote, they really just tried to dig up anything they could on me and they didn't find anything. And in the lawyers reading and Samuel's reading as well, they think this is what led to the airport charge. Basically like they've done all of this searching as in the authorities, they've subpoenaed the cell phone records, they've looked at his Gmail, that sort of stuff as well. Didn't find anything. Okay, we're finally going to get his phone at the airport, then we'll have something. They are then stopped. They can't do that because of the alleged wipe of the phone. Right. And then that is where this charge comes. And I think that narrative makes sense based on the information that we have available.
- [20:15]
C
Okay, we'll keep following this case. I'm sure we'll leave that there. And when we come back we'll talk about a story from Jason about a really wild AI powered TikTok shop.
- [20:35]
D
This message is sponsored by Raycon. One thing I appreciate about good earbuds is when I don't have to think about them. I can put them in first thing in the morning, use them while I'm working, take a walk in the afternoon, run errands later, and they're still the same pair I'm using at the end of the day. Basically I just need to make sure that they're in my pocket when I leave the house. And for me that's been my experience with the Raycon everyday earbuds. Classic. Got them right here with Back to school season here. I keep thinking these would have been perfect to have back when I was in school. Whether you're studying at the library, working through assignments, or just trying to find a quiet moment between classes, the active noise cancellation makes it so much easier to focus. They've also got multi point connectivity so I can stay connected to both my phone and computer without constantly reconnecting devices. And when I head outside, I switch to awareness mode, which lets me keep listening while still hearing traffic or what's happening around me. The battery life on these things has also been great up to 32 hours with the charging case and and if I forget to charge them, a 10 minute quick charge gives me about 90 minutes of listening. I have the black ones which I actually really like, but they also have a bunch of colors you might be a fan of the cool Mint color, for example, if you want to show off your creativity that way. Plus, Raycon delivers premium audio quality at about half the price of the big brands. With over 3 million happy customers and a 30 day happiness guarantee. Again, I've been using these pretty much since I got them. They're always in my pocket, they're always in my ears. They've been a really big part of my daily routine. The everyday earbuds classic are the perfect back to school companion. Go to buyraycon.com 404 to get 20% off. Thanks to Raycon for sponsoring that's. Go to buyraycon dot com 404 to get 20% off. I've gotten a lot more skeptical about skincare over the years because it feels like every product promises the same thing. Instant results, younger looking skin, miracle ingredients. So what caught my attention about Oneskin is that they approached it completely differently. Oneskin didn't want to be just another skincare brand. Oneskin was founded by four PhD longevity scientists who wanted to understand why skin ages in the first place. Instead of chasing quick fixes, they spent years researching the biology of aging itself. After testing more than 900 peptides, they discovered OS1, their proprietary peptide that's designed to target a leading driver of visible skin aging. Instead of just masking the symptoms, that's what I've like most about using it. This is OneSkin OS1 here. And here's an eye serum. Uh, I really like these. Oneskin makes products where you wake up the next morning and you don't necessarily expect magic. It's something that over time your skin just begins to feel healthier overall, smoother and more even instead of just looking temporarily moisturized. My favorite One Skin product is this, the OS one face moisturizer. It's super easy to use. It's not a dramatic overnight change, but I'm in the sun all the time and I feel like since I've been using this, I use it in the morning and I use it at night as well. And I feel like I wake up like looking less saggy. I think that I have these like wrinkles up here that feel a lot better over the last few months that I've been using this. And it's not just me saying it. One Skin's products are backed by four peer reviewed clinical studies, more than 10,000 five star reviews, and the company has been recognized by Bloomberg and Fast Company for its work in skin longevity. Born from over 10 years of longevity research, Oneskin is helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age. For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code 404 at OneSkin co. 404 that's 15% off at OneSkin co with code 404. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them 404 Media sent you. One thing I've noticed about traveling is that everything feels a little less intimidating when you understand even a little bit of the language. You're not trying to become fluent overnight, but being able to read a sign, order lunch, or ask someone a simple question makes a place feel a lot more approachable. That's why, if you've got summer travel coming up, I'd start with Babbel before you leave. Even 10 minutes a day can help you start having real conversations in as little as three weeks. What I like is that Babbel doesn't waste your time on endless vocabulary lists or memorizing verb charts. Instead, you're learning practical phrases you'll actually use. This is things like asking for directions, ordering food, checking into a hotel, or talking with people that you meet at a bar or a restaurant. The lessons are short, practical, and created by more than 200 language experts. They've also got interactive conversations, personalized review sessions, and even podcasts so you're practicing in different contexts instead of staring at flashcards all day. And because lessons are designed to fit into your day, it's easy to squeeze one in during a coffee break, your commute, while walking your dog, or before for bed. It's no surprise Babel has more than 25 million subscriptions and it's backed by a 14 day money back guarantee. If you've got summer travel coming up, now's the time to start so you can actually use what you learn on your trip. Right now, Babel is offering listeners to 404 Media up to 60% off. Go to babel.com 404 that's Babel B A B B L.com 404 for up to 60% off. Rules and restrictions may apply.
- [26:13]
B
All right, and we are back. Jason, you wrote this one and I edited it. The headline is inside an AI TikTok shop slop factory that shills supplements recalled by the fda. So this one is wild. It's also complicated. I'm going to do this in a slightly different way to how we did it in the article. In the article we like started with a video example, I think. Here. Let's start with a lawsuit first, just so people know who all the players are. So who is suing who and like, what are each of these companies? Then we'll get to the videos.
- [26:52]
D
Yeah, so I'm going to mention the company that's suing the other company and then stop talking about them because. Because ultimately, like, this lawsuit is kind of weird. It's basically like two. One supplement company is suing another supplement company. And it's not clear, kind of like. And this comes through in the court documents, it's not clear like, whether they have standing to do this. But this is just the means through which I discovered like some of the facts of the case because of the lawsuit and the filings and things like this. And this is actually a company that Manuel's covered before, so he can chime in like later about other things that he found earlier. So basically there is a company called Human that sells something called beetroot powder, which is a supplement. I won't confess to know anything about Beetroot powder. They are suing another company called Ambrosia Labs, which has a sub brand called Rosabella.
- [27:55]
B
Rosabella is the important one that people should.
- [27:57]
D
If you're listening to this podcast, you really only need to know about Rosabella. And so Rosabella is this brand that also sells beetroot powder. They also sell like moringa supplements, like things just like random supplements. And they largely sell these supplements on Amazon and they sell them on TikTok shop. And over the last year and a half, or so, most of their sales appear to be coming from TikTok shop. And the way that they are doing it is through this affiliate marketing network. And so basically Rosabella doesn't appear to be making so many of the TikTok videos that are promoting its product. Basically they are asking other people on TikTok to promote its product. And then if viewers like buy the supplement through that specific video on TikTok Shop, they get a commission. And this is like super common on TikTok shop. It's basically like, oh, you want to buy this like phone tripod or whatever. You'll have creators who just make videos about that phone tripod. And then anytime people buy that phone tripod from that person making the videos, they get some cut of the sale. And so this is like functionally how TikTok shop works. But what we have here is a supplement company that is making frankly, like, supplements of dubious quality. And I say this because the FDA recalled one of its products for having like, perhaps caused drug resistant salmonella infections. So it's like quite, quite like a dubious situation. But basically like you have people advertising this beetroot powder. And they are making all sorts of unfounded claims about the supposed health benefits of this powder. And that would be one thing if this were largely people who are real human beings making these claims. But the vast majority of Rosabella's, like, sales appear to be coming through AI influencers. And so it is like an AI generated doctor being like, do you have belly fat? Like, look into Rosabella. The other, like, very popular type of video is like a TED Talk type one where you have, like, someone on a stage with a microphone. And we'll get into, like, how this works in a second. But basically, like, a lot of the videos are racist. Like, there's no other way of saying it. Many of them are like, this is a secret Nigerian health trick, or this is a secret Egyptian health trick, or Ugandan or secret Indian. Like, basically they. They are pitching Rosabella this beetroot powder as like, this is a mystical, secret supplement that will help you lose fat, lower your blood pressure, et cetera, et cetera. And you don't know about it because, like, tribes in Africa discovered this and modern science doesn't know about it. And I'm telling you about it. And then, like, the influencer, the AI influencer is supposedly like, a Nigerian or an African, like Ugandan or Egyptian or Indian. And it just, like, plays into, like, extreme stereotypes.
- [31:36]
B
Yeah, we'll play some.
- [31:38]
D
Why is nobody talking about what this Bitch said? She's 81, but she looks like she's 30.
- [31:43]
B
Watch this.
- [31:44]
D
The best way to clean your gut after 30 years of eating junk food. It ain't a salad, it ain't no fancy juice cleanse.
- [31:52]
B
Let me just recap it. So Rosabella is basically getting supplements from one company, then selling them on TikTok Shop. And, you know, that would be sort of just sort of scammy, but also kind of normal. Like, dropshipping happens all the time. Right. What's different here is that there is this AI component as well, where it's not just like a little bit of AI, it's like the entire thing is basically built around these AI generated influencers. And it's not even just Rosabella itself really doing it. It's like all of these other channels which are promoting this to get a cut of it as well. Like, it's sort of like all of these people contributing to trying to push all of these sketchy supplements across TikTok Shop. So now that people have, you know, seen or heard some of these examples before, we get to who's actually behind this, which is the most interesting part, I think. How are these videos made as far as, you know?
- [33:04]
D
Yeah, well, so I guess back to the lawsuit. The thing at issue, the question here largely is, like, how closely is Rosabella directing this entire operation? Are they making the AI? Are they like, telling people how to make the AI, that sort of thing? Or is it just like people are randomly deciding to do this? Rosabella has an affiliate marketing program, like, and this is a good thing to do. And it's just like an out of control marketing thing that Rosabella is like, not really directing. And that is like the crux of the lawsuit, basically human. The competitor alleges that Rosabella is like, directing the entire thing and controlling the entire thing. And so then I did some research and I should shout out Conspirituality, which is another podcast that did an episode about Rosabella. Mallory DeMille. She basically, like, studies supplement companies and she studied this entire operation at some point about a month ago. And this was before the lawsuit was filed. Like, we kind of dug a bit into other areas, but Mallory found like, quite a lot of of this stuff that I'm about to talk about, but it's all worth going through because it's insane. So basically, the person who is running Rosabella, who invented Rosabella, is this guy named Luka Washenko. He rose to prominence in TikTok hustle bro circles by creating a caffeine vape company, like dropping. That sounds like a good combination. Yeah, yeah, basically. And then like, this is his current sort of operation. And if you've listened to any of our previous episodes about AI slop factories and things like this, basically what's happening here is the same thing that's been happening for all, like, AI slop that we've kind of reported on, where there is like a buy my course component to this, like, we'll teach you how to be rich situation. And so Luca runs this discord that's like a Rosabella discord that I could not get into, but is like referenced in various videos that we found on YouTube and also in the lawsuit. And then there is like a series of YouTube guides as to, like, how to make AI generated Rosabella ads. And there is like one main guy making the most prominent videos, I would say, and his name is Harry Chang. And he has a series of videos, one of which is called how I print $51,000 a month profit with AI influencers. Parentheses feels illegal. Like, in this video, he talks specifically about targeting elderly people. Like, elderly. The elderly health niche, which is like the niche is just like the type of content that you're creating the, that is like under, under indexed. And then in like another video he has just a series of videos about how to do this. And like in that video he talks about all these people are out there making hot young AI generated swimsuit models and only fans models. And he's like, you should be making AI generated 50 year olds because you're trying to trick 50 year olds and you want, and like 60, 70, 80 year olds and so you want them to like have a relatable person to, to talk to. And then there's like a video about specifically how he makes individual TikTok videos. And you know, it's like he uses Google's VO3, like he uses 11 labs for the voice. He uses a tool called hey Gen which is like quite popular among AI slo people. And he basically in this video is like, I see other health related videos that go viral from influencers. I copy paste their script, I run it through ChatGPT and I like make an influencer that says the exact same thing. So like in many cases this has like nothing to do with the supplement whatsoever. He's not like, oh, this is like what the supplement theoretically can do.
- [37:24]
B
He isn't cat, it seems.
- [37:26]
D
Yeah. Like one of the videos that he highlights is like another like a human like health influencer talking about not eating for a while, like what not eating sugar can do for you. And I don't know, like, I have no way of knowing if this is even like accurate information, but it's not related to supplements. But he's like, here's what not eating sugar can do for you. And that video went viral. And he's like, I'm just going to take that and say that it's like related to this beetroot powder. And so it's like marketing that's completely divorced from like any sort of reality
- [38:03]
B
which when you get into the world of supplements and health is not only sketch and immoral. Like depending on what it is exactly, like it could be illegal or at least that is what the lawsuit is claiming.
- [38:19]
C
Right.
- [38:19]
B
And I know that it's like the lawsuit is strange because it's like a competitor being like, hey, you can't do that sort of thing. And it's like, why are you suing? It is a strange lawsuit. But that is the argument basically that you're using AI to make all of these videos and the claims do fall under regulation, basically is what they're trying to get at.
- [38:41]
C
Right?
- [38:41]
D
Yeah, I mean you'd hope, but, like, Supplement World is, like, notoriously under regulated, both in marketing and in what you can sell and the claims that you can make and all of that. But, you know, there's an FDA recall for some of these. It's like, it's not like they're selling like, I don't know, like, doorbell doorknobs or something. They're selling, like, health products that people ingest. So anyways, basically, like, there's. There's this guy who is very closely, like, related to Rosabella who's, like, teaching people how to do all of this stuff. And then there's another video where, like, I went through many, many podcasts, YouTube videos. Like, Luka Washenko, the founder of this company, doesn't talk about Rosabella very much in any of the YouTube videos. He talks about, like, how to make money on TikTok shop, but then is, like, very vague about what he actually does. But then there's one video that's a meetup for TikTok shop hustlers, more or less, and it happened in New York City last year. And in this video, Luca is like, I got super rich off of Rosabella through this influencer network. Thank you so much. The influencer network. Couldn't have done it without you. And then there's like a Rosabella table. And they go over the Rosabella table in the video, and these people are like, I do the AI. Like, I do the AI for TikTok shop. And the other person's like, I do the AI for Amazon. And it's just like they admit it situation. It's like they're just going. I mean, they're just going, like, deep into detail about, like, how they do this, how it's all, like, largely money focused. Like, there's very little focus on, like, what the product is, what it can do, like, that sort of thing. They're just like, oh, like we're printing money over here.
- [40:35]
B
Well, that's the one thing I want to stress is that. Which I think is the thing that was really wild to me is that this Luca guy. Yes, he basically is Rosabella through the stuff that you found in these videos. And we'll get to them removing them as well. But when you saw this and I read it, it clicked for me that, oh, Rosabella is basically not a supplements company. It is an influencer, growth, marketing, hacking, whatever company is an army of people on discord, making AI influencers. And it's way more useful to think of Rosabella as that than even, like a sketch supplements company. That's almost like a fiction by these people.
- [41:17]
D
Well, that's the thing is like, especially Harry Chang, like in his videos he's like, you can sell literally anything. You could pick anything. We've decided to pick this because it has high margins and like the audience that we're marketing it to is like susceptible to this, which is old people, essentially. Yeah. And he also says like, the United States has terrible healthcare, so people are desperate for solutions. And so.
- [41:44]
B
Yeah, he's not wrong.
- [41:46]
D
I know. Exactly, exactly. But anyways, like at the end of this influencer mark, like, just to answer the question of like how closely is Rosabella like working with these people? It's like Luca, there's like a speech portion of this meetup and Luca calls Harry Chang up on stage and is like, this is the most important influencer that we have and he gives him a Rolex. And there's one person in particular I
- [42:12]
C
want to shout out today.
- [42:23]
D
I cannot be any more proud to be working on the brand with you. And for that I want to give to you this watch today. The relationship is like extremely close basically. And this story didn't perform that well, I think maybe because people have heard like the New York Times wrote about this at some point. Like they did a video that mentioned Rosabella. Like, didn't go into detail. Like, I think that this has kind of been like percolated in the ether for a bit and people are used to AI slop. But like the spec and also the specifics here are so complicated. It's like a complicated lawsuit. It's a complicated supply chain of the product, of the marketing, of how TikTok shop works, how all this stuff works. But like the end result is basically like not only is social media getting flooded with like this AI slop, but it's being used to shill products. It's being used to like, I mean they're faking doctors and, and all of this. And like on the other end of it is just like these 20 something youtubers who are have set up a similar content empire, like a similar discord content empire to the ones that we've seen before. Only now it's like being used to sell health products and it's wild. And like the lawsuit doesn't mention this, so I didn't get into it. But Emmanuel wrote about Rosabella earlier this year in a different context entirely. Well, it's still AI influencer related but like they were working with this A16Z company, a funded company like, called DoubleSpeed. Like it's kind of Crazy what's going there.
- [44:11]
C
So DoubleSpeed is a startup founded by this 20 year old. Like you said, A16Z is backing it. The basic pitch is that it's a platform where you can operate dozens, maybe more AI influencers. And not only does the platform generate the AI influencers and the Instagram posts and carousels and videos and all of that and post them to TikTok, it's doing it via phone farm. So like a bunch of physical phones that can then individually post the videos as a way to get around, like, the various anti astroturfing policies and detection methods that these platforms have. At some point, I got a leak of all the clients that were using DoubleSpeed, and Rosabella was one of them. And they were using the same type of AI generated content that you just wrote about. And I reached out to them and didn't hear from them for weeks. I had already published the story and I heard back, I think, months after publishing it, and they flat out denied that they use doublespeed, which I found to be very strange because I had internal documentation showing that they were using it. And I saw the actual posts that were clearly advertising their product. So I was like, are they lying? Are they, you know, just not aware that somebody at the company is doing it? But now, because of this lawsuit, because of this story you wrote, I think it's a better theory is that one of these other influencers who's part of this affiliate program was doing this. So it's like Rosabella directly wasn't doing it. Somebody who was profiting from, like, affiliate links was doing it. And maybe they know, maybe they don't, but they could deny that they know it.
- [46:08]
B
Well, the really good thing in Rosabella's statement to you about Double Speed Emanuel is like, no, we're not doing this. We only use genuine artisanal influencers on social media. And it turns out, as Jason's reporting, it's like, oh, no, they're AI generated as well. They're just AI generated by individual people, not AI generated by an A16 funded startup, basically. And like, okay, dude, I guess, you know.
- [46:42]
D
Yeah. And I mean, so I reached out for comment, obviously, both to the lawyers and to LUCA directly. And immediately after I reached out, like, a bunch of videos got deleted off of YouTube.
- [46:57]
B
Yeah.
- [46:57]
D
Which is like, okay, like, did you not understand that this was sitting out there on the Internet especially? Because, like, their legal defense is really weird. It's the one I'd expect them to make, but it's one where they're kind of like, partial. Like, in some places it seems like they're denying that they use AI at all. And then in others they're like, well, like, people can do whatever they want, we don't control them. But like, here's these videos showing that they are like heavily involved here. And then I got a response from Rosabella, the company that I used like their email and form to reach out to. And I'm like, almost positive that it's like AI generated. And I say that just because, like, it didn't answer any of my questions and was just like, sorry, like, our affiliate program is no longer running. And it's like, do you think I'm applying for your affiliate program? Like, I don't think anyone read it. Like, that's kind of the vibe that I got. But then all these videos did come down off the Internet. We had archived them thankfully. But yeah, it's like, I'll be curious to see if this lawsuit moves forward. I am not a lawyer, but I get the sense that like, it's a pretty weird lawsuit to bring as discussed. And so like, I don't know if one competitor, like one company can sue a competing company, being like, we don't like your ads and therefore it's like hurting our business. But I do hope it gets to discovery because if it gets to discovery, like, basically if the lawsuit moves forward even slightly, there'll be like a lot more interesting things coming out, most likely.
- [48:51]
B
Yeah, well, we'll keep an eye on that. Leave it there for the moment. If you are listening to the free version of the podcast, I'll now play us out. But if you are a paying 404 media subscriber, we're going to talk about how Google introduced a frankly insane AI feature that lets you put drone strikes on Google Earth. I think you can make the Eiffel Tower collapse as well. I saw that as well. You can subscribe and gain access to that content at 404 Media co. As a reminder, 404 Media is journalist founded and supported by subscribers. If you do wish to subscribe to 404 Media and directly support our work, please go to 404 Media co. You'll get unlimited access to our articles and an ad free version of this podcast. You'll also get to listen to the subscribers only section where we talk about a bonus story each week. This podcast is produced by Alyssa Midcalf. Another way to support us is by leaving a five star rating and review for the podcast. That stuff really, really does help us out. This has been 404 Media. We'll see you again next week.