Young Female Twitter Star Turns Out to Be 50-Year-Old Man Using Deepfakes

Photos of a smiling young woman with her motorbike proved popular with social media users in Japan and began to notch up hundreds of likes.

But some eagle-eyed followers noticed things did not add up; her arm seemed very hairy in one photo, and a mirror reflection showed a different face.

A TV show revealed the star of Twitter user @azusagakuyuki was actually a 50-year-old man named Zonggu.

He admitted to using photo editing apps to create his alter ego.

Zonggu told the TV programme Getsuyou Kara Yofukashi (Sitting Up Late From Monday) that he had wanted to increase his presence on social media and believed people would prefer to see a “younger beautiful woman” rather than an old “uncle”.

“No-one will read what a normal middle-aged man, taking care of his motorcycle and taking pictures outside, posts on his account,” he said.

Zonggu said he had been surprised by the results of editing apps such as FaceApp.

“First I just tried, then it happened to turn out to be fairly pretty. I get as many as 1,000 ‘likes’ now, though it was usually below 10 before,” he said, adding: “I got carried away gradually as I tried to make it cuter.”