Help — what Are My Legal Options?

Someone used AI to create a deepfake video of me endorsing a crypto investment scam. They took clips from my public YouTube channel (I'm a small fitness influencer, about 45K subscribers) and generated a video that looks and sounds exactly like me promoting some token called "FitCoin."

The video has been running as a paid ad on Facebook, Instagram believe it or not, and TikTok for at least 3 weeks. Several of my followers have already been scammed and some are blaming ME. I've reported it to all three platforms but only TikTok has taken it down so far. Meta says it's "under review."

I have no idea who made this. What legal options do I have? Can I sue the platforms for not removing it faster? I'm losing followers and my reputation is being destroyed just saying.

You have several strong legal claims here:

1. Right of publicity: Every state recognizes some form of right of publicity, which prevents unauthorized commercial use of your likeness. California (where you seem to be based) has one of the strongest statutes — Civil Code Section 3344 allows statutory damages of per unauthorized use plus actual damages and attorney's fees.
2. Lanham Act Section 43(a): The false endorsement creates a federal claim for false advertising. This gives you access to federal court and potentially the scammer's profits.
3. State deepfake laws: As of 2025, at least 10 states have specific deepfake laws. California AB 602 and AB 730 specifically address deepfakes used for fraud and without consent.
4. DMCA takedown: If they used your copyrighted content (your YouTube videos) to create the deepfake, file DMCA takedown notices directly with Meta and any hosting providers.

As for suing the platforms — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act generally protects platforms from liability for user-generated content. However, if Meta is running this as a PAID AD and profiting from it, there's an argument that Section 230 protection is weaker for paid advertising content. This is an evolving area of law.

I went through something very similar last year. Here's what actually worked for me to get content removed fast:

1. File a DMCA takedown (not just a "report") through Meta's official IP reporting tool at facebook.com/help/intellectual_property. This triggers a legal obligation to respond within 10 business days....

2. Contact Meta's legal team directly at ip@fb.com. The standard reporting tool goes to content moderators. The legal team moves faster.

3. File an IC3 complaint with the FBI (ic3.gov) since this involves wire fraud. When I included the FBI complaint number in my follow-up to Meta, the ads came down within 48 hours.

4. If you have a lawyer (at least in my experience), have them send a preservation letter to Meta immediately. Once the ads are down, you lose evidence for any future lawsuit.

From the crypto side: "FitCoin" is almost certainly a pump-and-dump. The scammers are paying for your face to drive buyers, then they dump their holdings. The blockchain is transparent — a crypto forensics firm can trace the wallet addresses used to pay for the ads and potentially identify the scammers.

Companies like Chainalysis and TRM Labs can trace on-chain transactions. If the scammers used any centralized exchange (Coinbase, Binance, etc.) to cash out, those exchanges have KYC records that can be subpoenaed. This is how many deepfake crypto scams have been unraveled.

Update: Filed DMCA takedowns, an IC3 complaint, and hired an IP attorney. Meta finally removed all the ads after my attorney sent a preservation letter. Total time to removal: 26 days from my first report. Unacceptable, but at least they are down now.

My attorney is pursuing the right of publicity claim and we traced the ad spend wallet to a Binance account. Subpoena is in process. Will update when we know more. Thanks everyone for the guidance — this thread was incredibly helpful when I was panicking.