The apparent network of TikTok accounts, which style themselves as authentic news brands with names such as BBB Uk News, Albion News, and Daily Britain News, have nearly 1 million followers combined. The accounts typically post videos using authentic footage of politicians or newscasters combined with AI-generated audio, and have posted 197 videos between Dec. 1 and Dec. 8, 2025, alone, garnering 943,000 views.
The accounts have posted a total of 6,042 such videos since May 2025, when most of the accounts launched, NewsGuard found. The network, which grew from 29 accounts in June to 73 in October 2025, posts videos on topics including taxes, pensions, and immigration.
Although NewsGuard could not determine who is behind the campaign, the accounts appear to have a financial motivation, rather than a political one. They bear the hallmarks of so-called “content farms,” posting huge quantities of low-quality content to generate income — in this case from TikTok’s revenue distribution program, which pays creators based on their views and engagement. To qualify for monetization, TikTok says that accounts need at least 10,000 followers and 100,000 views in the last 30 days.
NewsGuard found that 61 of the 73 accounts could qualify for the rewards program, and that as of early December, 28 of these remained active. It was not clear whether they have been paid by the platform since TikTok, like most major platforms, does not disclose which accounts are monetized or how much creators are paid.
Victoire Rio, executive director of Netherlands-based tech advocacy and research group What To Fix, told NewsGuard that the TikTok network uncovered by NewsGuard is consistent with other financially motivated actors the group has observed. She explained to NewsGuard in a Nov. 24, 2025, email that such accounts are often automated and use AI-templated content at scale, exploiting platforms’ revenue distribution programs for maximum profit.
Rio said that these content farms often “manage armies of fake accounts that can be used to both post content as well as generate the early engagement necessary to game platforms’ recommender systems.”
According to social media analysis company Brandwatch, “creators report a range between $4 and $8 per 1,000 views.” If this is true, then the 28 accounts still active at the beginning of December 2025 may have collectively earned between $2,424 and $4,848 in just the week between Dec. 1 and Dec. 8, when they posted 161 videos that together gained 606,000 views.
NewsGuard has previously reported on AI content farms publishing political misinformation on TikTok and other platforms. However, this is the first campaign it has identified that mass-produces deepfakes to target a global leader — not for any apparent ideological reason, but to drive revenue.
The tools used to create these deepfakes are widely available and can be created with minimal technical knowledge, making them relatively inexpensive to produce compared to the potential revenue they generate.
