‘Fuelling sexism’: AI ‘bikini interview’ videos flood internet

Fuelling sexism: AI ‘bikini interview’ videos flood internet – and Maltese creators are cashing in

By Maria Grech, Hot Malta

Scroll through TikTok or Instagram Reels at 11 p.m. on any weekday in Sliema and you’ll probably see it: a bronzed, bikini-clad “influencer” reclining on a luzzu-red towel at St Peter’s Pool, nodding earnestly while a disembodied male voice asks, “So, what’s your take on Malta’s new AI strategy?” The clip racks up 200,000 views in two hours, 4,000 thirsty emojis in the comments, and precisely zero discussion about the policy.

Welcome to the latest internet gold-rush: AI-generated “bikini interview” videos, stitched together with lip-sync software and a splash of Mediterranean sunshine. The twist? A growing slice of the genre is being produced right here in Malta, by Maltese tech freelancers, expat start-ups in St Julian’s co-working hubs, and even a handful of sixth-formers in Gozo who rent out their cousin’s speedboat for background footage.

The formula is cynically simple. Free image-generation tools like Stable Diffusion create hyper-realistic women in swimwear; ElevenLabs supplies an English-speaking male “podcast host” voice; open-source editing apps graft the mouth movements onto stock beach footage shot at Golden Bay. The caption screams “Malta summer vibes 🇲🇹” and the algorithm does the rest. According to data scraped by local analytics firm Loquentia, Maltese accounts have uploaded 1,800 such videos in the past eight weeks alone—up from 200 last year.

“We’re talking about a cottage industry that turns sexism into CPMs,” says Dr Aisha Sammut, lecturer in digital ethics at the University of Malta. “Creators know that Meta’s ad-revenue model rewards engagement over substance, and nothing engages like a pretty woman in a two-piece allegedly talking tech policy.” Sammut’s latest paper, co-authored with students, found that 78 % of viewers couldn’t recall a single policy point mentioned in the clips, but 93 % remembered the colour of the swimsuit.

For Malta, a country that markets itself as both a sun-soaked playground and a forward-thinking blockchain island, the trend is doubly uncomfortable. Government billboards at the airport boast “Malta: The AI Launchpad of the Mediterranean,” yet the same week the Malta Digital Innovation Authority (MDIA) announced a €2 million fund for responsible AI, a fake influencer dubbed “Mela_Maria” hit 1.2 million views with a video shot outside the Azure Window ruins—never mind that the arch collapsed in 2017.

Local women in tech feel caught in the crossfire. “I speak on panels about quantum cryptography and still get DMs asking if I’ll ever do a ‘poolside explainer’,” says software engineer Leanne Caruana, co-founder of the NGO Girls Code Malta. “These videos reinforce the idea that women’s expertise is decorative.” The NGO is now lobbying streaming platforms to add “AI-generated” watermarks and pushing Transport Malta to restrict commercial drone filming at popular beaches without a permit.

Meanwhile, the creators aren’t exactly hiding. One 24-year-old from Birkirkara, who asked to be identified only as “K,” told Hot Malta he makes €3,000 a month from bikini-interview channels. “I use Maltese beaches because the light is perfect and tourists recognise the scenery. Is it sexist? Maybe. But I also run male model workout channels—same AI, same money.” His justification echoes a wider moral shrug on Maltese Reddit threads, where users joke that “sexism sells better than pastizzi.”

The Malta Communications Authority (MCA) says current broadcasting rules don’t cover AI-generated influencers, but a spokesperson confirmed that “consultations are underway with the EU Digital Services Act team.” Until then, enforcement is piecemeal. Last week, the page “MaltaTechBabes” was banned for using deep-faked faces of real Maltese journalists without consent, only to reappear 48 hours later under a new handle.

Cultural critics argue the phenomenon is eroding the very brand Malta has spent a decade cultivating. “We’re positioning ourselves as Europe’s test-bed for ethical tech, yet our most visible digital export is synthetic eye-candy,” warns Professor Mark-Anthony Falzon, sociologist at the University of Malta. “There’s a cognitive dissonance between the glossy keynotes at the Delta Summit and the pixelated bikini feeds that actually reach global audiences.”

Community groups are fighting back with humour. The satirical Instagram page “Bikini Budget Analysis,” run by Valletta activists, parodies the genre by dressing a rubber duck in sunglasses and having it explain EU fiscal rules against a backdrop of Għadira Bay. The duck has 50,000 followers and counting—proof that Maltese audiences still crave content that doesn’t insult their intelligence.

As the summer heats up, the battle for Malta’s digital soul will play out one scroll at a time. Until regulators catch up, the only certainty is that somewhere on the islands, a laptop is rendering another faceless woman in swimwear, ready to opine on next week’s power-cut crisis—while the real experts, bikini or no bikini, keep waiting to be heard.