Overview
- The WDR/ARD documentary, broadcast Monday, reports more than 2,000 deepfake videos and ads that copy Eckart von Hirschhausen’s face and voice to sell bogus cures.
- A Civey survey cited in the film found that 12% of German adults had seen fakes using his name, which the producers estimate equals about 5.6 million people.
- An audit by Austria’s Institute for Applied Telecommunications counted more than 750,000 views on Meta platforms in four weeks, found 99% of the ads used his name, and saw only about 30% were removed.
- Reporting in the film tracks the fraud to cross‑border call centers, including a Brazil whistleblower, and shows how scammers revoice real clips with AI lip‑sync to push products and urge patients to stop regular medication.
- Hirschhausen won a ruling at the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt ordering Meta to take down the fakes, yet many remain online, and he joins others in urging binding platform liability under EU rules and tougher enforcement.