University of British Columbia says Instagram removed two AI-generated accounts that purported to be UBC women’s volleyball athletes.
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Two social media accounts presented as UBC women’s volleyball players have been identified as AI-generated, with the university saying the posts and accounts were removed after UBC reported them to Instagram.
The accounts were attributed to “Jordyn Hayes” and “Emma Ho,” neither of which appeared on UBC’s official women’s volleyball roster. According to accounts associated with the names, some images were generated entirely with AI, while others used photos taken from real Instagram accounts and manipulated, including one image on the Hayes account taken from a volleyball player’s Instagram profile at North Park University in Chicago, and images on the Ho account that reportedly came from other U.S. student accounts as well as Hannah Dods of the UBC women’s hockey team.
SFU professor Steve DiPaola said the pages are designed to move viewers off Instagram to a private site, adding, “The main thing they’re doing is trying to move you on to an OnlyFans page.”
Law professor Emily Laidlaw said the tactic undermines the work female athletes put in to be taken seriously, saying, “It certainly undermines that when AI is being used to create these heavily sexualized images of women in sports.”
UBC spokesperson Thandi Fletcher said in a statement that, “After UBC reported the posts and accounts to Instagram, they were removed. We encourage any affected students to reach out to the university for support.” The accounts were still active as of Monday afternoon, with many of the same images still visible.
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