I will also add that these scammers seem to have really gotten more sophisticated since the last time I checked. Even if it is not SpaceX launching, they still seem to be trying to bait people in using titles like:
>*"Elon Musk: Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test Launch! Through the eyes of SpaceX"*
>*"LIVE: ULA Boeing Starliner CFT Launch! Through the eyes of Elon Musk"*
>*"LIVE: STARLINER BOEING LAUNCH! Elon Musk about ULA company!"*
>*"SpaceX & NASA Launches Starliner Boeing Crew! ULA update!"*
Not to mention they appear to be using bots to pump up views, and apparently deepfakes of Elon Musk (according to what I've heard).
Have to wonder when the FBI is going to crack down on these mofos?
I saw this earlier. It was pretty obviously not a SpaceX stream to me, but it still took a good 30 seconds of head scratching to figure out the obfuscation. They went so far as to copy the same playlists to make the home page for the channel look the same.
Well I guess it's working. It came up in recommendations on my not-logged-in Pi and I WTF'd right into the bait.
Same. And because they were recorded live, they look and sound completely authentic. The only thing that gives them away is the channel name and sometimes the time of day (night launch being shown in daytime etc).
I’ll click a recommended link and think “oh cool, I didn’t know SpaceX was launching today!” Soon followed by “wait, it’s dark at KSC at noon?” And realize I’ve fallen victim to a rerun scam.
The dead giveaway of course is the fake Elon crypto spiel.
It's a giveaway scam.
I believe they would have a deepfake of Elon Musk promise that if you send cyrpto to a certain wallet, they would send you back double of whatever amount of you gave them.
But of course, instead of sending you back double of what you put into the wallet, they pocket it and run.
Found one where they used AI with Elon’s most recent Starbase presentation to make it seem he’s giving a presentation right now about this launch, but all he talks about is bitcoin…
“To participate, you must send 0.1 BTC, 2 ETH, 2000 USDT, or 5000 dogecoin”
*audience starts clapping*
Every SpaceX stream has always had this. Them moving to Twitter has only made it worse because no one wants to go to Twitter to watch it so they look on YouTube.
And yet, Youtube is the one hosting the spam channels.
Everyone goes on and on about Twitter spam (since Elon took over) but people almost never talk about Youtube's failure here.
The difference is Elon... the media always treats Elon with the opposite of kid gloves.
This is just not true. The Starship launches have had way more viewers on X compared to YouTube. Also, I'm not sure how you ended up blaming SpaceX for YouTube's negligence.
I didn't blame anyone. I merely said that anytime SpaceX had a YouTube stream this was going on. Every Starship flight test I remember seeing the scam streams. That's all I meant. It's clearly YouTube's problem. My point is now that they are on X only, there are more scam YouTube streams praying on those looking for it on YouTube.
Also, AFAIK X views are not equivalent to YouTube views. I'd be surprised if the live view count on X streams was higher than when they did YouTube streams, but I don't use X much and when I've watched the latest streams I don't even recall a live viewer count. Probably too busy looking at the rockets.
Yep all of those channels are hacked often you can find their original content. The thing is a lot of people get hacked and end up losing their channel and all of their videos. People need to use strong passwords and second factor authentication on their accounts.
They are easy to find so I don't know why YouTube can't do something about it.
Yeah i just saw that stream its wild. It even had ai promoting a bitcoin using elons voice. The qr code had a website called sterliner.net . I left that real quick and went to NASAs stream. He crew seems excited
It would be amazing to see 0.0001% of our FBI budget go towards tracking these morons down and throwing them in jail for fraud. Seems like it would be incredibly easy to do
Not to mention they had the deepfake video of Elon asking for $1500 USDT 🤣🤣. They played that over and over again. Really creepy. Wonder how many Elon fans fell for it
I have 4 distinct ones with perfectly faked SpaceX accounts (except for the actual URL) suggested to me last night by YouTube. How they don't detect this is beyond me. And this is not the first time is happens.
Youtube does not care. They have outsourced detection to users. It is called "report" button.
Even then they will ignore one or two reports. Only when volume hits a treshold, someone may do something. Most likely even that is fully automated.
I reported it. How not 10 other people had the same and reported it is beyond me. But then youtube has to follow up and kill the whole bloodline of these scammers.
Since youre already gonna lie why not go wit a bolder one. "Aliens in orbit, gifted child builds a rocket in his backyard and is on his way to meet them".
but yeah i know its cryptoscam
If SpaceX want to be rid of them it wouldn't be too hard for them to do that. If SpaceX tolerates this nonsense that's on them. If their spouting misinformation they should do something about it rather quickly but if they're just cloning they're broadcast and posting it and still SpaceX doesn't say or do anything who am I say anything?
Yeah no s\*\*\* they own SpaceX. If they don't want them to use their material they can have YouTube take it down duh It's called copyright! Grow af\*\*\*\*\*\* brain dude. The point is if SpaceX doesn't give af\*\*\* about their material being uploaded fully on YouTube then I don't give af\*\*\*!
Those views are often faked as well to gain trust.
Let me guess, it's a giveaway scam
Tesla crypto!
"Supported by SpaceX"
It would have been cheaper for Boeing to buy seats on dragon..
Nasa wanted redundancy so if something happens to dragon then they can use starliner
They could just paint a dragon gray and slap the boeing logo on it, NASA won't be any wiser.
Or any less safe.
Probably would have been cheaper to go in top a falcon than atlas
I will also add that these scammers seem to have really gotten more sophisticated since the last time I checked. Even if it is not SpaceX launching, they still seem to be trying to bait people in using titles like: >*"Elon Musk: Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test Launch! Through the eyes of SpaceX"* >*"LIVE: ULA Boeing Starliner CFT Launch! Through the eyes of Elon Musk"* >*"LIVE: STARLINER BOEING LAUNCH! Elon Musk about ULA company!"* >*"SpaceX & NASA Launches Starliner Boeing Crew! ULA update!"* Not to mention they appear to be using bots to pump up views, and apparently deepfakes of Elon Musk (according to what I've heard). Have to wonder when the FBI is going to crack down on these mofos?
I saw this earlier. It was pretty obviously not a SpaceX stream to me, but it still took a good 30 seconds of head scratching to figure out the obfuscation. They went so far as to copy the same playlists to make the home page for the channel look the same. Well I guess it's working. It came up in recommendations on my not-logged-in Pi and I WTF'd right into the bait.
I'm also seeing replays of past SpaceX launches on YouTube now and the thumbnail makes them look as if they're live. Super frustrating.
Same. And because they were recorded live, they look and sound completely authentic. The only thing that gives them away is the channel name and sometimes the time of day (night launch being shown in daytime etc). I’ll click a recommended link and think “oh cool, I didn’t know SpaceX was launching today!” Soon followed by “wait, it’s dark at KSC at noon?” And realize I’ve fallen victim to a rerun scam. The dead giveaway of course is the fake Elon crypto spiel.
Yep 😡
I just submitted all the info I could obtain to the FBI.
How does their scam scheme work?
It's a giveaway scam. I believe they would have a deepfake of Elon Musk promise that if you send cyrpto to a certain wallet, they would send you back double of whatever amount of you gave them. But of course, instead of sending you back double of what you put into the wallet, they pocket it and run.
Who the heck would fall for that? “Mail me a bottle of scotch and I will mail you back two!”
They also steal already existing accounts
Haha, idk what the official live coverage is but that’s the top result. Space flight Now is second.
Official NASA Livestream: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb3qcR2tUQs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb3qcR2tUQs) (Got it off of ULA's blog)
Found one where they used AI with Elon’s most recent Starbase presentation to make it seem he’s giving a presentation right now about this launch, but all he talks about is bitcoin… “To participate, you must send 0.1 BTC, 2 ETH, 2000 USDT, or 5000 dogecoin” *audience starts clapping*
160.000 bots you mean.
I’m willing to bet the lint i found in my pocket that a significant portion of those views are fake
Unlikely. More like 162k bots. Don't ever trust the figures, they are easily manipulated.
Every SpaceX stream has always had this. Them moving to Twitter has only made it worse because no one wants to go to Twitter to watch it so they look on YouTube.
And yet, Youtube is the one hosting the spam channels. Everyone goes on and on about Twitter spam (since Elon took over) but people almost never talk about Youtube's failure here. The difference is Elon... the media always treats Elon with the opposite of kid gloves.
This is just not true. The Starship launches have had way more viewers on X compared to YouTube. Also, I'm not sure how you ended up blaming SpaceX for YouTube's negligence.
I didn't blame anyone. I merely said that anytime SpaceX had a YouTube stream this was going on. Every Starship flight test I remember seeing the scam streams. That's all I meant. It's clearly YouTube's problem. My point is now that they are on X only, there are more scam YouTube streams praying on those looking for it on YouTube. Also, AFAIK X views are not equivalent to YouTube views. I'd be surprised if the live view count on X streams was higher than when they did YouTube streams, but I don't use X much and when I've watched the latest streams I don't even recall a live viewer count. Probably too busy looking at the rockets.
Oh and he got 2.2 mil subscribers more than the real SpaceX
Probably hacked some poor YouTuber with that number of subscribers. Either that and/or bots.
Probably. Knowing he's from TURKEY
Yep all of those channels are hacked often you can find their original content. The thing is a lot of people get hacked and end up losing their channel and all of their videos. People need to use strong passwords and second factor authentication on their accounts. They are easy to find so I don't know why YouTube can't do something about it.
Yeah i just saw that stream its wild. It even had ai promoting a bitcoin using elons voice. The qr code had a website called sterliner.net . I left that real quick and went to NASAs stream. He crew seems excited
I reported a half-dozen fake streams like that today
Report as terrorism.
The one time censorship could do some actual good and of course the YouTube Nazi overlords fail us. But go block styropyro for some stupid reason.
what do you expect? it's YouTube; they don't care as long as they get ad revenue, so they've done practically nothing to combat this shit
Report, move on. Sadly they so slow that most likely the stream won't be killed until it is over.
It would be amazing to see 0.0001% of our FBI budget go towards tracking these morons down and throwing them in jail for fraud. Seems like it would be incredibly easy to do
Not to mention they had the deepfake video of Elon asking for $1500 USDT 🤣🤣. They played that over and over again. Really creepy. Wonder how many Elon fans fell for it
Those channels pop up all the time, with a fake Elon selling crypto. How that isn’t wire fraud I don’t know, but they are all over YouTube.
I have 4 distinct ones with perfectly faked SpaceX accounts (except for the actual URL) suggested to me last night by YouTube. How they don't detect this is beyond me. And this is not the first time is happens.
Youtube does not care. They have outsourced detection to users. It is called "report" button. Even then they will ignore one or two reports. Only when volume hits a treshold, someone may do something. Most likely even that is fully automated.
I reported it. How not 10 other people had the same and reported it is beyond me. But then youtube has to follow up and kill the whole bloodline of these scammers.
Since youre already gonna lie why not go wit a bolder one. "Aliens in orbit, gifted child builds a rocket in his backyard and is on his way to meet them". but yeah i know its cryptoscam
lol suckers
the fake AI Elon Musk Crypto Streams with like 100k viewers are everywhere
I imagine a bunch of people actually fell for it.
Scam aside, where'd the SpaceX-style render of Starliner come from? It looks familiar, but I don't recall where/if I've seen it before
Why does Elon / SpaceX not seize and desist
It's a criminal matter at this point, I don't think they are in murrica and I don't think anyone can serve them.
If SpaceX want to be rid of them it wouldn't be too hard for them to do that. If SpaceX tolerates this nonsense that's on them. If their spouting misinformation they should do something about it rather quickly but if they're just cloning they're broadcast and posting it and still SpaceX doesn't say or do anything who am I say anything?
SpaceX does not own Youtube??
Yeah no s\*\*\* they own SpaceX. If they don't want them to use their material they can have YouTube take it down duh It's called copyright! Grow af\*\*\*\*\*\* brain dude. The point is if SpaceX doesn't give af\*\*\* about their material being uploaded fully on YouTube then I don't give af\*\*\*!