Australian Broadcaster Channel Seven’s YouTube Channels Replaced By Elon Musk Crypto Scams
Images of AI-generated Elon Musk crypto scam videos flood Channel Seven’s YouTube brands as channels go offline.
Australian free-to-air broadcaster Channel Seven has confirmed that several of its YouTube channels appear to have been hacked, with the channel’s official content replaced with Elon Musk-based cryptocurrency scams.
The footage was a live stream of an AI-generated Musk exhorting viewers to deposit bitcoin, Ethereum, or Dogecoin to a particular website, with the promise that any investment would be automatically doubled and returned to the sender.
According to News.com.au, the broadcast had more than 45,000 viewers at one point and lasted five hours before Seven’s home page on the streaming site was replaced with an error message.
However, at the time of writing (see screenshot), a search for “seven news” returns a list of “The Latest from 7NEWS Australia”, which is still dominated by scam videos, apparently hosted on the 7NEWS Australia channel .
Clicking on that link takes you to a completely different channel, @tesla.elonstream, which is currently hosting three purported live streams titled “LIVE: Tesla Unveils a Masterpiece: The Tesla That Will Change the Automotive Industry Forever – CEO of “Tesla.”
Curiously, that channel presents two news stories from Channel Seven, dating from one to four hours ago.
A Channel Seven spokesperson confirmed the incident.
“Seven is aware that some of its branded YouTube channels are not appearing as they should. “Seven is investigating and working with YouTube to resolve the situation as soon as possible,” a spokesperson told News.com.au.
Elon Musk is a common hook for cryptocurrency scams due in part to Musk’s own cryptocurrency trading and the loyalty of his fan base.
“I’m surprised that people still fall for these simple, well-known and apparent scams,” said security researcher Dr. Johannes B. Ullrich following a series of Musk-related scams that began circulating on YouTube in January 2023.
“But cryptocurrency users may represent a self-selecting target group.”
