A lawyer representing superstar pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes goes to new lengths to attempt to fight synthetic intelligence-generated misinformation posted about his client on YouTube, saying the platform has didn’t successfully uphold its personal insurance policies.
On Thursday, Dustin Pusch, an lawyer for Jakes, filed a movement within the Northern District of California looking for to subpoena Google, YouTube’s mother or father firm, to share info regarding the identities of 4 YouTube account holders. They are purportedly positioned in Pakistan, South Africa, the Philippines and Kenya, in line with the accounts’ “About” sections on YouTube.
The movement mentioned these accounts made false claims about Jakes, citing previous NBC News reporting about AI-generated misinformation on YouTube, and added that parts of the movies had been seemingly created with AI instruments, together with photos utilized in thumbnails and voice-overs. YouTube movies using AI have been common for years, and YouTube recently introduced AI initiatives to dramatically improve the quantity of AI-generated content material and materials on the platform.
But AI parts have additionally been used to spread misinformation on movies which have the potential to make a big revenue for each YouTube and their creators, by monetizing them with adverts. The movement filed by Jakes’ lawyer is a major improvement in efforts to fight viral AI-generated misinformation on the platform, being one of many first of its type making an attempt to unmask the creators behind it. In previous reporting, a YouTube creator behind comparable content material beforehand confirmed their use of AI instruments to NBC News, and AI detection consultants discovered a excessive probability of comparable content material involving AI-generated photos and audio.
YouTube did not instantly reply to a request for remark.
In the final yr, Jakes has been the topic of a whole bunch of YouTube movies which have acquired thousands and thousands of views, a part of a torrent of misinformation that stemmed from hypothesis surrounding allegations made about Sean “Diddy” Combs, with whom Jakes has been related up to now.
Since Combs was first accused of abuse — in a lawsuit he settled with Casandra “Cassie” Ventura in November 2023 — a flurry of allegations, together with sex trafficking, have been made in opposition to the rapper and file govt, who was arrested in September and is awaiting trial whereas in custody. An lawyer for Combs denied Ventura’s allegations and said that the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing. Combs has denied different allegations made in subsequent civil lawsuits and pleaded not guilty within the prison case.
Alongside the actual information protection of the Combs case, a web-based misinformation ecosystem targeting Black celebrities has flourished. In January, NBC News recognized dozens of movies with a whole bunch of hundreds of views containing AI-generated misinformation about Combs, Jakes and other people like TV host Steve Harvey and actor Denzel Washington.
Some of the movies falsely reported the people being arrested and others featured thumbnails with salacious pretend photos of celebrities in mattress collectively. NBC News discovered that among the movies had been created using AI tools. YouTube took motion on among the movies and channels NBC News recognized. But Jakes’ lawyer wrote in his movement that YouTube has didn’t take motion on most of the movies he’s flagged for the corporate.
Jakes is the senior pastor on the non-denominational Christian megachurch The Potter’s House in Dallas, Texas.
Since 2021, he hosts a sermon sequence on Revolt, a media firm Combs began in 2013; the rapper stepped down from Revolt final yr, promoting his stake in March. In 2022, Jakes made a quick cease at Combs’ birthday celebration. In a 2024 lawsuit, music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones alleged that Combs deliberate to “leverage his relationship” with Jakes to “soften the affect” of Ventura’s lawsuit. Combs has not addressed the declare.
Jakes has not defended Combs within the wake of Ventura’s lawsuit, however he has defended himself from an avalanche of “false and absurd movies” about him, Combs and different Black celebrities, the movement mentioned.
“These YouTubers are purportedly utilizing the sordid and sensational allegations revolving round Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to assault, humiliate, degrade, and defame Bishop Jakes—and plenty of different distinguished black celebrities—with manufactured claims that he’s responsible of the identical crimes and different lewd and repulsive conduct as Mr. Combs,” the movement mentioned. “In different phrases, YouTubers are utilizing Bishop Jakes’s prominence as clickbait to draw unwitting customers to view their knowingly false movies for his or her (and probably different overseas firms’) monetary acquire.”
As described within the movement and in screenshots of YouTube video titles and thumbnails seen by NBC News, pretend photos present Jakes in a jail jumpsuit, in handcuffs and in sexual situations with different male celebrities. Video titles falsely declare that Jakes was arrested, got here out as homosexual and stepped down from his place at The Potter’s House.
The movement mentioned Jakes’ authorized motion follows a yearlong try to interact with YouTube’s authorized counsel on the difficulty, in addition to report movies that violate YouTube’s group pointers round deceptive thumbnails, spam, misinformation and lewd sexual imagery. YouTube has eliminated among the movies, however left a majority up, the movement mentioned.
An NBC News assessment of YouTube search outcomes for “td jakes” and “td jakes diddy” on Wednesday surfaced greater than two dozen movies, some with over 1 million views, with titles and thumbnails containing false info, doctored images and lurid claims about Jakes. Some of the movies related Combs to Jakes’ current onstage health incident.
If the movement and subpoena are profitable, upon receiving info like IP addresses and e-mail addresses, Jakes might pursue defamation litigation in opposition to the individuals behind the YouTube channels, the movement mentioned. In November, Jakes filed a defamation suit in opposition to a person who claimed Jakes sexually assaulted him. The synthetic the declare on a podcast and no expenses had been ever filed.
