i don't think the article is saying the problems are AI's fault, just that the success is not the result of AI.

this is being promoted as an AI success story, but it's actually a fraud success story.

Yeah, it sounds like they didn't even try to do things "the right way," whatever that is. You don't accidentally create hundreds of fake Facebook profiles, you don't accidentally create deepfakes for your marketing materials. The most charitable read I can give is that they just have faulty scruples. But it's hard to find the seed of a good idea that just went off the rails.