The Pulse
AI Accounts Copy Eight Comedians to Drive Adult-Platform Traffic
WIRED identified eight comedians whose stand-up clips were copied by AI-generated Instagram accounts that direct viewers to Fanvue or OnlyFans. Comedians say Meta left the videos up, while Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the company should
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
WIRED identified eight comedians whose viral stand-up clips were copied by AI-generated women posting to Instagram, with links leading viewers to Fanvue or OnlyFans. The accounts present the jokes as their own, sometimes reaching larger audiences than the comics they copied. For the comedians, the problem is not only stolen material: their work helps sell sexualized online personas, while platform rules offer limited recourse.
Julia Jasunas found her joke on Aylen Skye’s account
Comedian Julia Jasunas learned that one of her jokes had been copied after a fellow comic sent her an Instagram video. The account, under the name Aylen Skye, performed Jasunas’ bit about renting a room in her two-bedroom apartment to a cute man. WIRED reports the delivery matched down to the ums and ahs.
Jasunas said she reported the video to Meta for impersonation. The company told her it did not violate its community guidelines because Skye was not pretending to be Jasunas, but was passing off the joke as its own. “It’s one thing to have your jokes stolen,” Jasunas told WIRED. “It’s another to funnel your work into something so sexualized, for someone else’s profit.”
Eight comedians, a cluster of accounts
WIRED found that many of the accounts follow one another and reuse already successful stand-up clips. Some also post fabricated-looking late-night interviews with hosts including Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel, along with jokes aimed at political audiences. The copies can benefit from improved lighting and sound, tighter framing, and revealing outfits that may help them attract attention.
Not every account consistently labels its videos as AI-generated. Instagram’s rules prohibit impersonation, WIRED reports, but do not generally prohibit copying content that is not protected by copyright. The distinction leaves comedians with a difficult complaint: a video can use their joke without claiming to be them, while still sending attention and potential subscribers elsewhere.
Tiffany Sloane copied George Brett Olson’s bit
A second example surfaced on October 3, when comedian George Brett Olson posted a side-by-side comparison of his joke and a near-identical version on the account Tiffany Sloane. The bit contrasted Republicans’ concern about illegal immigration with their approach to AI risks. The two performers appeared against similar backdrops in similar clothes; Olson’s version had a different, expletive-containing punch line.
Olson said followers reported the copied clip to Meta, but they told him the company replied that it did not violate community guidelines. After he called out the account, Sloane commented, “sorry, won’t happen again,” then deleted the video and many other Reels, WIRED reports. The account had more than 375,000 Instagram followers, and its profile linked to an OnlyFans page.
Meta has not removed the accounts WIRED flagged
After Olson tagged Instagram head Adam Mosseri, Mosseri said it was not “practical for us to try and ban AI content,” but that Meta was “very invested in trying to drive more traffic to original content creators.” He added that the company should work out what to do when an AI account copies content wholesale. Meta spokesperson Francis Brennan declined to comment further to WIRED, saying, “Our policies are pretty clear around this stuff, and Adam’s comment speaks for itself.”
The legal route may also be difficult. WIRED cited University of Michigan law professor Aaron Perzanowski’s 2017 observation that low-value creative-work disputes rarely lead to litigation; Olson said an intellectual-property lawyer he consulted echoed that concern. The stakes for a single joke may not justify a lawsuit, even when a copied clip promotes a paid account.
The videos remain online
Some of the copied performances draw more views than the originals, while comedians say reports to Meta have not consistently led to removals. Mandy Martino, another comedian whose joke Skye copied, told WIRED: “AI is evolving very fast, and we need rules to protect creators before this becomes a bigger issue.” WIRED reported that all of the AI-generated accounts it flagged were still on Instagram.