Did cheerleaders for 33 sports teams shock social media by posting a bold "fully revealing" photoshoot that got seven million views on X? No, that's not true: The false claims are part of an AI-generated series of articles and posts created by a spam operation managed from Vietnam. Fake fan pages are used to target North American and European Facebook users with nearly-identical posts using AI-generated images and naming dozens of sports teams.
Among the false posts Lead Stories found is a post (archived here) shared by The Durham Hardwood Facebook page on April 23, 2026. The caption read:
Duke Blue Devils basketball cheerleaders have shocked social media after posting a bold "fully revealing" photoshoot that has already reached 7 million views on X.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Apr 29 03:57:55 2026 UTC)
(Image source: The Durham Hardwood page on Facebook)
A Facebook search (archived here) for the keywords "cheerleaders have shocked social media after posting a bold fully revealing photoshoot" found the same claim made about cheerleaders with 34 teams from the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NCAA football and basketball, along with three Australian/New Zealand rugby teams.
- Alabama Crimson Tide
- Arkansas Razorbacks
- Boston Red Sox
- Dallas Mavericks
- Denver Broncos
- Detroit Lions
- Detroit Pistons
- Duke Blue Devils
- Edmonton Oilers
- Florida State Seminoles
- Green Bay Packers
- Houston Rockets
- Iowa Hawkeyes
- Kentucky Wildcats
- Las Vegas Raiders
- Miami Hurricanes
- Michigan State Spartans
- Minnesota Vikings
- Montreal Canadiens
- New England Patriots
- New Zealand Warriors
- North Carolina Tar Heels
- North Dakota Fighting Hawks
- Ohio State
- Oklahoma City Thunder
- Penn State
- Penrith Panthers
- Philadelphia Phillies
- Philadelphia 76ers
- Purdue Boilermakers
- San Francisco 49ers
- San Francisco Giants
- Seattle Mariners
- Seattle Seahawks
- Sydney Roosters
- Tennessee Volunteers
- Texas Longhorns
- UConn
(Image source: Facebook)
The Durham Hardwood about page (archived here) confirmed the page about Duke University sports is managed from Vietnam.
(Image source: The Durham Hardwood profile page on Facebook)
The Durham Hardwood post links to an article (archived here) titled "Dυke Cheerleaders' Viral Photoshoot Sparks Debate oп Image, Braпdiпg, aпd Social Media Cυltυre." It included the same image of a cheerleader in Duke gear, which the HiveModeration.com AI content detection tool concluded with 99.9% certainty that it was not real.
Another feature of this article and the posts is the use of lookalike Cyrillic letters used in place of Latin letters, which may be an attempt to evade automated content moderation.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of goldflow.daily24.world)
The Vietnam connection is significant, since fact-checkers, including Lead Stories, have identified a major source of AI-generated false stories coming from a single operation based in that Southeast Asian country. Recent reporting and fact checks mentioning that country are available here.
Lead Stories has published a primer -- or a prebunk -- on how to identify these kinds of fake posts exported from Vietnam. It is titled "Prebunk: Beware Of Fake Fan Pages Spreading False Stories About Your Favorite Celebrities -- How To Spot 'Viet Spam.'"
