AI or Not Exposes Viral Nigerian Deepfake Slop Factory

The best way to get clicks in news is to be the one breaking it first.

The old adage about news is they'd rather be first and wrong than second and right. Denzel Washington famously said "If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read it, you’re misinformed."

What is the easiest way to be first on breaking news?

Generate it.

AI detection pointed at a celebrity tabloid was not on anyone's 2026 bingo card, but here we are, running a gossip site's invented scoops through AI or Not.

Some of the top clicked stories every year are about life and death: pregnancies and famous people passing.

So what does this publication do?

Break fake stories on pregnancies and made up obituaries.

The sad part is it's working: they've had posts go viral with 2m+ views.

On Oct. 19, a site called usalod.com published paparazzi-style photos of Taylor Swift in a bikini at Lake Como, split down the middle so one half showed a baby bump. A link to the story went out on X on Oct. 20 at 5:05 AM and collected 2.4 million views. X users were already proposing Community Notes on it.

The X post with 2.4 million views, 131 replies, 34 reposts, 1K likes and 820 bookmarks. Source: X

usalod.com is an AI slop factory run from Nigeria and posing as a TMZ-style celebrity tabloid. It runs on two sites: usalod.com, and newsmous.com, which took over when the first link stopped working. AI or Not's AI detector found the photos and the copy are machine-made.

Earlier, the same operation had announced that Swift was dead, that Travis Kelce's mother was dead and that a former Chiefs running back had been killed in a crash.

AI or Not pulled all 642 posts from both sites and ran every image and article through its detectors. The AI image detector flagged 241 images, and the AI text detector flagged 498 articles.

Key Takeaways from the AI Detection Reports

• usalod.com and newsmous.com operate as a fake celebrity tabloid: the stories are invented, and AI or Not's AI detector flagged the photos and copy as AI-generated.
• Both sites run the same WordPress theme, the same author layout and the same hosting company, with fake bylines (Michelle Schneider and Jessica Johansson) that have no bio.
• The X account promoting the links displays the name David Samuel, and X's own labels say it is based in Nigeria.

The Fake Tabloid's Invented Deaths

"If it bleeds, it leads."
Newsroom saying, popularized by Eric Pooley in New York magazine (1989)

The headlines on both sites are tabloid headlines with the reporting removed: caps, a siren emoji, a cliffhanger. Sixty-four usalod titles and 68 newsmous titles end in "See More," "See Full Details" or "Read More."

Here are some of the deaths, quoted as the sites wrote them:

• "JUST IN: SHOCKING NEWS: Fox News Just Reported That Travis Kelce's Wife Taylor Swift Has Passed Away at 36 After a… See More" (usalod, Aug. 19)
• "SAD NEWS: Just 30 Minutes Ago, 'Super Bowl Mom' Donna Kelce Passes Away at 75…" (usalod, Sept. 16)
• "🚨 BREAKING NEWS: NFL LEGEND TOM BRADY REPORTEDLY DEAD AFTER HORRIFIC CAR CRASH FOLLOWING EXOTIC FAMILY VACATION…" (newsmous, Oct. 16)
• "BREAKING: Former Chiefs Star Running Back Isiah Pacheco Passes Away at 27 Following Fatal Traffic Accident" (newsmous, Oct. 16)
• "Former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama Tragically Passes Away at 61…" (newsmous, Nov. 8, 2025)
• "BREAKING: U.S. First Lady Melania Trump Has Just Tragically Passed Away at the White House" (newsmous, Dec. 21, 2025)
• "BREAKING NEWS: DONALD J. TRUMP HAS REPORTEDLY DIED 15 MINUTES AGO AT WALTER REED HOSPITAL." (newsmous, April 25)
• "'VERY BAD NEWS': U.S. Vice President JD Vance Has Passed Away At 42 years…" (usalod, June 24)

Fake death headlines for Isiah Pacheco and Tom Brady on newsmous.com's front page. Source: newsmous.com

The Tom Brady post came with a picture. It shows a fake "LIVE · SKY" bug and a chyron styled after a local TV station reading "BREAKING NEWS: NFL LEGEND TOM BRADY REPORTEDLY DEAD AFTER HORRIFIC CAR CRASH…" AI or Not's AI image detector flagged it as AI-generated.

A fake news screenshot of a Tom Brady car crash. AI or Not's AI image detector flagged it as AI-generated. Source: newsmous.com

The sitting president and vice president are on the list too. The Trump post from April 25 used a card reading "Donald J. Trump 1946 – 2026 RIP," which AI or Not also flagged.

A Donald Trump "RIP" memorial card. AI or Not's AI image detector flagged it as AI-generated. Source: newsmous.com

The sites also feed on real tragedies. RJ Mitte, the Breaking Bad actor, died on Oct. 12, according to WCAX. His death was real. usalod ran a post the next day promising a "heartbreaking clip of his final moments."

The Fake Tabloid's Invented Pregnancies

"The news is not what happened, but what someone decided was news."
Unknown

Pregnancy is the other announcement this slop factory distributes. We counted at least 16 newsmous titles and five usalod titles about Swift's baby bump alone. The headlines are not limited to her:

• Kim Kardashian "breaks down in Tears as 27 years old sister Kylie Jenner is confirmed Pregnant for Tom Brady" (newsmous, May 14)
• Jason and Kylie Kelce "eight weeks pregnant with twins" (newsmous, May 14)
• Angel Reese "Pregnant with Wendell Carter Jr.'s Baby? Insider Leaks Ultrasound Pics" (newsmous, Jan. 19)
• Patrick and Brittany Mahomes with a "Pregnancy and Gender Reveal for Baby No. 4 at CPKC Stadium" (usalod, Oct. 13, two posts)
• A "Shocking Double Pregnancy and Gender Reveal" for Swift, Kelce and the Mahomeses (usalod, Oct. 14)
• Brady with a "pregnant" Irina Shayk at the Academy Museum Gala (usalod, Oct. 18)

The Lake Como split image of Swift and Kelce. AI or Not's AI image detector flagged it as AI-generated. Source: usalod.com

Tom Brady with a "pregnant" Irina Shayk at a gala. AI or Not's AI image detector flagged it as AI-generated. Source: usalod.com

An ultrasound image for "baby No. 4" in the Mahomes family. AI or Not's AI image detector flagged it as AI-generated. Source: usalod.com

The "paparazzi" shots, the Swift and Kelce photo sets usalod ran from Oct. 13 to Oct. 20, kept coming back AI-generated. That includes the Lake Como split, the "liquid gold" New York shots, a crying Swift in a VIP suite, the Academy Museum Gala arrival and an ALCS game.

This is not the first time the story has run. AI or Not detected the fake Swift Kelce pregnancy announcement last month.

Real Hook, Fake Payload

"The modern journalist is just an entertainer who uses facts instead of jokes."
Attributed to G. K. Chesterton

A real tabloid sends photographers and calls reps. This one sends a prompt, and the best input is a true story with a gap in it. Swift and Kelce did get married, on July 3 at Madison Square Garden, Rolling Stone reported. So "Travis Kelce's Wife Taylor Swift" is accurate, and the sites ride it. Within days of the wedding, usalod ran "Pop Superstar Taylor Swift Faces a Terrifying Highway Crash Hours After Her Wedding."

The cleanest example is from last weekend. Kelce tweaked his right ankle in the Chiefs' 22 to 6 win over the Chargers on Oct. 18 and played through it. Reid said it didn't look serious, RotoBaller reported.

Within 24 hours, usalod had published:

• "Caitlin Clark and Donna Kelce Comfort a Crying Taylor Swift…" with AI images
• "Crying Taylor Swift Pushes Aside Caitlin Clark and Donna Kelce…"
• "What Could Have Happened to Travis Kelce? I Didn't Know the Ankle Injury… Was That Serious"
• The Lake Como vacation

A crying Taylor Swift in a stadium suite. AI or Not's AI image detector flagged it as AI-generated. Source: usalod.com

A minor ankle tweak became a crying breakdown in a day.

How AI or Not's AI Image Detector Exposed the Fake Tabloid

"Real journalism is a model of resistance against the easy lie."
Attributed to Martín Caparrós

We pulled every post from both sites through their public WordPress API on Oct. 21: 198 from usalod.com and 444 from newsmous.com. We downloaded every image, then ran each one through AI or Not's AI image detector and each article of 400 characters or more through AI or Not's AI text detector.

The text numbers:

• usalod.com: 189 of 195 articles flagged as AI-generated (97%)
• newsmous.com: 309 of 438 flagged (71%), with older posts that include more text copied from real outlets
• Combined: 498 of 633 (79%)

The image numbers:

• usalod.com: 137 of 262 images flagged as AI-generated, with 100 posts carrying at least one
• newsmous.com: 104 of 612 images flagged, with 89 posts carrying at least one
• Combined: 241 of 874 images, across 189 posts

The images that were not AI were mostly real photos lifted from somewhere else, such as Google Images thumbnails saved as images-NN.jpeg, Daily Mail CDN files, screenshots, and videos ripped with downloader sites.

The 50 newest of the 241 AI-generated images, published Oct. 8 to Oct. 21. All were flagged by AI or Not's AI image detector. Source: usalod.com and newsmous.com

The articles contain their own evidence. Forty-four usalod posts and 22 newsmous posts include "fictional," "unverified," "no credible evidence" or "not a real news report" in the body, under a headline that says the opposite. Sounds like someone didn't proofread their own AI slop writing! The Swift death post's body opens with "JUST IN: Fictional Report Claims Taylor Swift Has Passed Away at 36." The Donna Kelce post says "In this fictional story, Travis Kelce is said to have confirmed…" and then invents a quote for him. The Brady post says "According to the fictional account…"

Here is the headline against the body:

Headline: "Fox News Just Reported That Travis Kelce's Wife Taylor Swift Has Passed Away at 36"

Body: "However, this is not a real news report. There is no credible evidence that Taylor Swift has died."

Some posts also have a chatbot's citation chips pasted into the copy. "The Express Tribune +2," "Page Six +2," "People.com +1," "CBS News +1." That "+N" is the format of a chatbot's web-search answer, copied in verbatim, and it appears in usalod posts 507, 519, 511 and 630 and newsmous post 1296.

One more tell: the "exclusive" photo sets run at 1376×768. 45 of the 49 usalod images with those exact dimensions were flagged as AI-generated. That is a default output size of a popular image generator. Six usalod files are named toolxox.com-free-ai-tools-2k-, after a free online AI tool site.

Tracing the Nigerian Deepfake Slop Factory

"In a world where information is a commodity, the truth becomes a luxury."
Attributed to Tom Stoppard

The links were pushed by an X account, @SamDave2023, with the display name "David Samuel" and a blue check. X's own About page for it says "Account based in Nigeria" and "Connected via Nigeria Android App." It joined in September 2023 and has been verified since July 2026.

The About page of @SamDave2023. Source: X

The sites say the same thing in different ways. Both WordPress installs keep their clocks at UTC+1 all year. usalod's first post, on March 10, reads 12:58 local and 11:58 GMT. newsmous's newest, on Oct. 21, reads 14:09 local and 13:09 GMT. UTC+1 in March and in October, with no daylight saving shift, matches West Africa Time. The UK is on UTC+0 in early March, and Central European Time is UTC+2 in October.

The images carry Android filenames: IMG_20261019_230105.jpg (97 of the AI-flagged usalod images use that pattern), PSX_ files from a mobile Photoshop app, FB_IMG_ Facebook app saves, and Screenshot_2026-10-19- captures. usalod's busiest hours are 00:00 to 03:00 GMT, 86 of its 198 posts, which is late evening in the United States.

We can't confirm who "David Samuel" really is.

Techpoint Africa reported in February that X had halted payouts to most Nigerian creators over engagement manipulation, and that monetization courses sold for as little as $2 (₦3,000). X retired its Creator Revenue Sharing program on Sept. 7 for "Original Content Rewards," which excludes copied content and artificial impressions.

So the next play is using X to push traffic to fake blogs that run ads.

One Operation, Two Cloned Sites

"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind."
Attributed to Jim Morrison

usalod.com and newsmous.com look like two outlets. They are built like one.

• Both use the Zox News theme, the same "Latest News, Celebrity, NFL" description, the same Yoast setup and the same NFL, CELEBRITY and NEWS categories. Articles on both are set to "noindex, follow," which keeps them out of search while links circulate on social media.
• Both have the same WordPress user layout. User 1 is admin2. User 3 has the slug journalist.
• That journalist user is "Michelle Schneider" on usalod, on 196 of 198 posts, and "Jessica Johansson" on newsmous, on 442 of 444. Neither byline has a bio.
• Both domains are registered at Namecheap behind a privacy proxy and hosted on Namecheap shared hosting. newsmous.com was created on June 23, 2023, and usalod.com on Jan. 21, 2024.
• Four identical titles appear on both sites.

So the entire newsroom is one WordPress user with a different name on each site all being run with AI-generated stories.

The second site was not idle, but it was close. newsmous posted seven times in July and nine times in September. Then usalod published its last post on Oct. 20 at 04:11, and newsmous picked up the Swift and Kelce stream the same day.

That is the switch that the X post announced. A reply from @SamDave2023 under the viral link read: "🚨 IMPORTANT UPDATE! The original link isn't working, so I've posted a NEW WORKING LINK HERE! 👇" It pointed to the newsmous version of the Lake Como story, which went up on Oct. 20 at 18:50 local time. usalod's version had gone up the night before at 23:04.

@SamDave2023 has since blocked AI or Not.

Source: X

Why Celebrity Deepfakes Matter

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent."
Attributed to Malcolm X

The fake pregnancies and deaths use real people's faces and real tragedies to move traffic.

In January 2024, explicit AI deepfakes of Swift spread across X, and the platform temporarily blocked searches for her name. X's Joe Benarroch called it "a temporary action" taken "with an abundance of caution," PBS and AP reported. 404 Media traced the images to a group using a Microsoft image tool.

The fake deaths hit sitting officials too. A president, a vice president and a first lady all die on these sites on a regular schedule. The Pacheco story went further, with a dateline, a time of the crash and a claim that local authorities and team officials had confirmed it. A reader who sees the headline in a feed has no way to know the article underneath says "fictional."

Some of this could be passed off as satire, and the disclaimers read that way. They are not in the headlines or the X posts, which is where almost everyone stops reading.

AI Blocker, a browser extension that flags AI images in your feed, is one way to see these before you share them. AI detection has been pulled into stories like this before, such as the Kim Jong Un proof of life images, and AI or Not was the one checking.

FAQ

Is Taylor Swift Pregnant?

There is no announced pregnancy. Swift and Travis Kelce married on July 3 at Madison Square Garden, and the Lake Como baby bump photos on usalod.com and newsmous.com were flagged as AI-generated by AI or Not's AI image detector.

Is Tom Brady Dead?

No. The Oct. 16 newsmous post that said so used an AI-generated fake news screenshot with a made-up "LIVE · SKY" bug, and its own text referred to "the fictional account."

How Can You Tell If a Celebrity Photo Is AI-Generated?

Run it through AI or Not. On these two sites, the AI images often came at exactly 1376×768 with Android camera-roll filenames, and the stories behind them said "fictional" somewhere in the text, an obvious AI artifact.

What Is an AI Slop Factory?

It is an operation that mass-produces AI-generated content to collect clicks. Here, usalod.com and newsmous.com posed as a TMZ-style tabloid, with invented stories, generated photos and chatbot-written articles. AI or Not's AI detector flagged 241 of their images and 498 of their articles.