Toto Wolff amused himself with 'fake news': 'There's also a p*rn movie with my face'
In recent months, many photos and videos of Toto Wolff appeared on social media. Some were real, but also a lot were fake. Toto Wolff himself can laugh about it and laughingly referred to a porn movie where his face would allegedly appear in.
Over the past months, there was a lot of speculation: is Max Verstappen going to Mercedes? Everyone thought they knew the outcome and the so-called proof popped up every now and then. Among all that alleged evidence, there were also many photos that were fake. Mostly produced by AI.
It is the opening of the conversation with Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, when he joins a session with a select group of the Dutch media, including GPblog. Wolff appears to have seen it, and even manages to derive amusement from it.
''There are even porn movies with me, with my head''- Toto Wolff
‘’My target group is not the social media user. It's more grown-ups.
"But from time to time I get to see what's up there and what things are being made up there, to a degree that even artificial intelligence is faking up some photos. I look at it with a certain amusement.''
Asked whether it is becoming dangerous, the Austrian responded: ''You can with the deep fakes. I think there's some porn movies with me, with my head.''
Asked if we could quote him on that, Wolff said laughing: ''As long as there's a good body and I'm performing well in the scenes.''
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Toto Wolff enjoys 'fake' news
Wolff didn't just watch a part of it: 'Niki Lauda always watched the whole video because he was interested in the story.
"That was really unfair from that guy. That he didn't meet the girl afterwards.''
However, for the reader at home, it's sometimes unclear whether something is true or not.
''Yes, because there's such an overflow of information that you get and things get worse by the iteration.
''You're reading something today and then the next day it's being tweaked.
''Everything goes for the headline and then when you read the article it's actually not as spectacular, controversial, like what the headline says.''
''I'd rather have it this way and cope with some deepfake porn than nobody being interested''- Toto Wolff
''What I've learned is not to spend too much time in trying to, how can I say, take it too personal.
''Bradley (Lord, ed.), who runs our comms, the only thing I ask him is always to say, the weekend or every day, at the end of the day, 'show me the worst things and if you want to flatter me, show me the best ones'.''
''But it's good for Formula 1 . I think it's a testament of how strong the sport is and how, which categories have been created, how the social media buzz has really taken Formula 1 by a storm.''
''Our audiences become younger and more female. We're in a great space.
''I'd rather have it this way and cope with some deepfake porn than nobody being interested, because I remember, these times we had them too.''
In response to a question by GPblog, asking whether Wolff is concerned with such matters on a daily basis, he stated: ''No, but I think I'm maybe a different generation that from time to time I look at it and then I amuse myself with the content.
''But it's not part of my daily activities that it has an important source of information.''
