On Sept. 17, 2023, the purported celebrity gossip YouTube channel Drama Bay published a video that claimed actor Corey Feldman had released a list that detailed celebrities who had purportedly been involved in criminal sex acts on one or more islands formerly owned by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein was found dead in his jail cell on Aug. 10, 2019. An autopsy ruled it was a suicide by hanging. His death set off a wave of new conspiracy theories.
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Speaking of conspiracy theories and rumors, the clip's title read, "Corey Feldman EXPOSES List Of Celebrities Involved In Jeffrey Epstein Island."
The video was viewed just over 7,000 times on YouTube. However, it was a repost of the same video on TikTok that really took off, earning more than 140,000 views in just the first eight hours after being uploaded.
This clip's narration, scripting, sequencing and thumbnail image all looked to have been a product of artificial intelligence (AI), video-creation tools.
The thumbnail image that was meant to entice viewers to watch the video showed pictures of prominent celebrities, including Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey and Taylor Swift.
The video (archived) began as follows:
It's an exposé like no other, and it's bound to send shockwaves through the world of the rich and famous. We're talking about Corey Feldman, a name synonymous with standing up against the monsters in Hollywood. And now, the rumors are swirling that he's about to expose a chilling list of...
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