Video and photos of South Korean journalist misused in doctored 'investment scheme' ads

This article is more than one year old.
Published on December 1, 2023 at 06:00
5 min read
By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea

Fabricated advertisements touting "get rich quick" investment schemes featuring a well-known South Korean journalist, Sohn Suk-hee, have circulated repeatedly on social media in the country. One video, viewed thousands of times, has been manipulated using artificial intelligence, experts told AFP. A separate "news report" has been doctored from the webpage of Chosun Ilbo, a major South Korean newspaper. As of November 30, 2023, Sohn has not promoted any investment schemes.

"Banks are afraid of this new method and are gradually trying to ban it," reads the video's Korean-language caption on Facebook. It gained more than 12,000 views after it was shared on November 20, 2023.

The 30-second clip appears to show retired South Korean journalist Sohn Suk-hee promoting "an innovative new AI-based investment platform that paved the path towards economic freedom for South Koreans."

He then continues to claim users of the platform made large profits and urged people to "register at the link below".

A title card on screen reads "So Suk-hee", misspelling Sohn's surname. A purported chyron repeats the same claim.

Sohn is one of the country's best-known journalists (archived link). He broke a series of news reports that contributed to the impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye during his time as broadcaster JTBC's news chief from 2013 to 2020.

He retired in September 2023, following a stint as a JTBC foreign correspondent.

Screenshot of the misleading post shared on Facebook. Captured November 23, 2023.

A similar false claim that Sohn "promoted an investment platform" was shared in a purported Chosun Ilbo news report on December 29, 2022 that included photos of the journalist.

The report claims Sohn was invited to a live video conference where he "revealed secret investment strategies of the chaebols" -- referring to South Korea's large, family-run conglomerates -- "that can make anyone a millionaire within three or four months".

The rest of the report is written in awkward Korean text that appears to have been machine translated and includes purported quotes from Sohn and beneficiaries of the money-making scheme.

Screenshot of the misleading report shared on Facebook. Captured November 23, 2023.

South Korea has seen a spate of dubious advertisements misusing the names and faces of well-known economists or investment bankers to promote "investment schemes", local media reported in October.

Similar fabricated reports claiming Sohn promoted money-making schemes were shared on South Korean social media such as Naver Blog and Daum Cafe here and here.

But AFP found both the video and news report have been doctored.

Deepfake

Combination Google reverse image and keyword searches found the video shared on Facebook corresponds to footage of Sohn posted on JTBC News' official YouTube channel on July 30, 2018 (archived link).

In the YouTube video, Sohn thanks viewers for the channel reaching 700,000 subscribers and asks them to respond to a network survey about their viewing habits. Nowhere in the five-minute, 13-second segment does Sohn mention cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, or any investment opportunities.

The manipulated clip uses parts from the JTBC video's three-minute, 26-second mark to the three-minute, 43-second mark, and from the three-minute, 51-second mark to the four-minute, three-second mark.

Sohn says: "[We'd like to know] if there are certain contents that you would only watch on JTBC, what would it be? Once we collect responses, we would like to expand on such content or prepare similar types of content."

Below are screenshot comparisons of the doctored clip (left) and the corresponding section from the original JTBC footage published on YouTube (right):

Screenshot comparisons of the doctored clip (left) and the corresponding section from the original JTBC footage published on YouTube (right)

Comparisons of the two clips showed that Sohn's lips appeared to have been manipulated to match the fabricated audio in the doctored video.

Jung Sou-hwan, an expert in AI-generated audio at Soongsil University's College of Information Technology, ran the audio used in the clip through AI-based programs developed by his team to detect artificially generated audio known as "deepfakes" (archived link).

"One of our models detected with 100 percent certainty that the audio in this video has been generated using deepfake technology," Jung told AFP on November 27.

Similarly, Kwon Taekyoung of Yonsei University's Graduate School of Artificial Intelligence found the video to be a forgery based on tests using two deepfake detection models (archived link).

Fake news report

Meanwhile, checks of the Chosun Ilbo homepage from December 29, 2022, on Wayback Machine found the news report about the investment scheme featuring Sohn has also been fabricated.

Keyword searches on Chosun Ilbo's website found no reports, advertisements, or any other content that shows Sohn promoting an investment opportunity (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the doctored Chosun Ilbo report (left) and the newspaper's homepage archived on December 29, 2022 (right):

Screenshot comparison of the doctored Chosun Ilbo report (left) and the newspaper's homepage archived on December 29, 2022 (right)

On September 23, 2023, local outlet OhMyNews reported Sohn said he had been aware of the fabricated article that "maliciously misused" his image for more than half a year (archived link).

He added that broadcaster JTBC's legal team said there was no recourse against the spread of such falsified adverts.

AFP found no reports of Sohn promoting any investment schemes as of November 30, 2023.

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