Analysis of: Warning over TikTok scam using AI-generated videos of Spain’s Princess Leonor
The Guardian | January 6, 2026
The emergence of AI-generated deepfake scams impersonating Spanish Princess Leonor reveals the intersection of technological exploitation and class-based trust hierarchies. Scammers operating from the Dominican Republic are leveraging the symbolic capital of European royalty to extract money from victims—predominantly in Latin America—who are promised thousands of dollars in exchange for upfront fees of a few hundred. This scheme exploits both the material desperation of working-class people seeking economic opportunity and the lingering ideological power of monarchical institutions that historically extracted wealth from colonized populations. The platform economy's role is equally instructive. TikTok, despite its stated policies against identity fraud, has consistently refused to remove these scam accounts, reportedly claiming the content doesn't violate regulations. This reveals how platform capitalism's profit incentives—driven by engagement metrics and advertising revenue—create structural indifference to harm inflicted on users, particularly those outside wealthy Western markets. The contradiction between TikTok's stated community guidelines and its enforcement practice demonstrates how platform governance serves corporate interests rather than user protection. Perhaps most telling is the response: a formal statement from the Princess of Asturias Foundation rather than any systemic intervention. The institution defends its brand while the underlying conditions—poverty that makes such scams appealing, platform economies that enable them, and the enduring ideological weight of aristocratic authority—remain unaddressed. The scam's success depends on victims believing that proximity to hereditary wealth might transform their circumstances, a belief system that ultimately reinforces rather than challenges existing class hierarchies.
Class Dynamics
Actors: Spanish monarchy and aristocratic institutions, Working-class victims (predominantly Latin American), Scammers operating from Dominican Republic, TikTok (platform capital), Media institutions (El País)
Beneficiaries: Scammers extracting direct wealth from victims, TikTok through engagement and platform activity, Monarchy through renewed visibility and sympathetic coverage
Harmed Parties: Working-class victims losing savings to fraud, Latin American communities targeted by scammers, Those left in debt after pursuing false promises
The scheme operates through multiple power asymmetries: the ideological authority of European royalty over former colonial subjects, the informational asymmetry between AI-literate scammers and victims unfamiliar with deepfake technology, and the structural power of platform corporations to determine what harms merit intervention. The monarchy, while nominally a victim of identity theft, suffers only reputational harm while retaining all material privileges, whereas working-class victims face concrete financial devastation.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: Economic precarity driving victims to seek alternative income sources, Low barrier to entry for AI-enabled fraud, Platform advertising models incentivizing engagement over safety, Wealth inequality between Global North and Latin America, Colonial economic legacies creating ideological receptivity
The scam represents a parasitic extraction of value from working-class savings accumulated through labor. Platform capitalism enables this by monetizing attention and engagement regardless of content harm, effectively profiting from fraud-driven traffic. The scammers function as a criminal petty bourgeoisie, using technological means of production (AI tools, platform access) to appropriate wealth without productive labor.
Resources at Stake: Victims' savings and accumulated wages, Platform engagement metrics and advertising revenue, Symbolic capital of royal institutions, Trust in digital communication systems
Historical Context
Precedents: Colonial-era extraction of Latin American wealth by Spanish Crown, Advance-fee fraud schemes (Nigerian prince scams), Historical use of aristocratic authority to legitimize exploitation, Pattern of technological innovation serving existing power structures
The scam inverts yet perpetuates colonial extraction patterns: where the Spanish Crown once directly extracted wealth from the Americas, now the symbolic residue of that authority is weaponized by third parties to continue the flow of wealth from Latin American workers. The article's mention that Leonor would be Spain's first female ruler since Isabella II—who presided over colonial holdings—underscores the historical continuity of monarchical symbolism. Platform capitalism has created new infrastructure for old patterns of exploitation.
Contradictions
Primary: TikTok's stated commitment to user safety directly contradicts its enforcement practices and profit incentives, revealing that platform governance serves capital accumulation rather than community protection.
Secondary: Victims seek escape from economic precarity through schemes that deepen their precarity, AI technology marketed as democratizing instead enables new forms of exploitation, Monarchy presents itself as victim while benefiting from the ideological power being exploited, Dominican Republic scammers occupy contradictory class position as both exploited (in global economy) and exploiters (of fellow workers)
These contradictions are likely to intensify as AI tools become more accessible and convincing. Platform capital will face increasing pressure to choose between engagement-maximizing algorithms and user safety. The ideological contradiction—that hereditary wealth remains appealing to those excluded from it—may gradually erode as scams proliferate and disillusionment grows, though this requires broader consciousness of class dynamics rather than individual learning through victimization.
Global Interconnections
This story illuminates how digital platform capitalism has created global infrastructure for exploitation that transcends national boundaries while reinforcing existing hierarchies. The Dominican Republic-to-Latin America pipeline reflects how peripheral economies relate to each other through the mediation of Global North platforms and symbols. TikTok, a Chinese-owned company operating under American regulatory frameworks, facilitates fraud using European aristocratic imagery targeting Latin American workers—a genuinely transnational circuit of exploitation enabled by platform capitalism's geographic indifference. The AI dimension connects to broader patterns of technological development under capitalism, where innovations are rapidly deployed for extraction before regulatory or social responses can develop. Deepfake technology, like previous communications technologies, initially promised democratization but has been captured for fraud, propaganda, and exploitation. The scam's success depends on the same attention economy that platforms have cultivated, where trust signals are simulated rather than earned.
Conclusion
This case demonstrates how technological innovation under capitalism tends to amplify rather than resolve class exploitation. Meaningful response requires challenging multiple levels: the platform business models that profit from harmful engagement, the economic precarity that makes workers vulnerable to fraud, and the ideological residue of aristocratic authority that such scams exploit. Individual fraud awareness is insufficient when the structural conditions—desperate workers, unaccountable platforms, and persistent wealth inequality—remain intact. The working class requires not protection from scams but transformation of the conditions that make such scams viable.
Editorial Note: This analysis applies a dialectical materialist framework to news events. It represents one interpretive perspective and should not be considered objective reporting.
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