Deepfake videos, fake WhatsApp channel: How a Facebook page used CJP name for engagement farming…

A Facebook page named ‘Yuva Cockroach’ with over 500,000 followers posted deepfake videos of Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), in an apparent effort to boost engagement and followers. The deepfakes used Dipke's likeness to promote the page and solicit follows.

What happened

The page uploaded at least 23 deepfake videos featuring Dipke. These videos, analyzed using Google Gemini, were confirmed to be AI-generated, showing anomalies such as robotic voice quality, unnatural pauses, and visual inconsistencies like blurry or distorted teeth. The deepfakes often presented Dipke asking users to follow the page, falsely claiming it was a backup or the official CJP Facebook page. Some videos urged users to follow the account to protect the party's Instagram presence. In some instances, the deepfake Dipke claimed that the Yuva Cockroach page was the only authentic CJP page, while others were fake. One video showed a manipulated version of Dipke conducting an online election between political parties, instructing users to engage with the post in different ways to vote for each party. Another deepfake video promoted a WhatsApp channel, initially named ‘Yuva Shakti Sangathan’, which was later renamed to ‘Cockroach Janata Party’.