Malta Media Email Acknowledges AI Avatar in Michael Schmitt Videos

An email sent from Malta Media’s general address and signed by Michael Schmitt acknowledged that videos depicting the publication’s editor used his AI avatar, according to Tribuna. The exchange followed questions about the clips and the disappearance of his personal LinkedIn profile.

Tribuna published its account on October 13, 2026, after contacting Malta Media the previous day. The respondent said Schmitt was well and wrote: “And that is my AI avatar in the videos.” 

The acknowledgement addresses how the videos were produced. It does not independently establish who wrote the email, controlled the accounts or approved the material.

Tribuna requested a verification call. After an initial objection, it offered a brief, unrecorded video conversation or another reliable way to establish identity. The publication said it received no further response before publication and retained screenshots of the correspondence. 

LinkedIn Profile Disappeared While Articles Continued

Questions about Schmitt’s online presence predate the October exchange. Gambling Club reported on July 4 that his personal LinkedIn profile was no longer publicly visible, although Malta Media continued publishing articles under his name.

LinkedIn had been an important distribution channel for his reporting on gambling ownership structures, regulatory issues and corporate disputes. The July report did not establish why the profile had disappeared or whether the change was permanent. 

Tribuna said an earlier approach on July 6 went unanswered. It also identified a July 4 post on Schmitt’s X account as the earliest AI video it found. That chronology concerns the material Tribuna located, rather than a verified inventory of every video published under his name. 

An unavailable social profile and an unsuccessful verification request leave questions unanswered. Neither establishes that Schmitt has been impersonated or that he is in danger.

Malta Media Continues Criticism of Casino Secrets

The verification questions arose while Malta Media was publishing criticism of journalist Lilith Wittmann’s Casino Secrets project, which investigates gambling businesses and regulatory systems.

An October 7 article carrying Schmitt’s byline challenged how regulatory documents were obtained and how personal information was handled. Malta Media said its concerns included passport identifiers, dates of birth and residential addresses appearing in publicly accessible files.

Those descriptions are Malta Media’s claims about the archive. The article distinguished its criticism of the acquisition and publication methods from the public-interest questions raised by investigations into gambling companies. 

Malta Media also said it was contacting data-protection authorities in Germany, Malta and Curaçao, approaching prosecutors in Berlin and using reporting procedures offered by infrastructure providers, including the domain registrar and Cloudflare.

These were steps the publication said it was taking. They do not, by themselves, establish that an authority found wrongdoing or ordered material removed. The article itself acknowledged that legal conclusions about particular conduct belong to the relevant authorities and courts. 

Tribuna’s reported exchange confirms a narrower point about the videos: the reply from Malta Media’s inbox described them as using an AI avatar. Independent verification of the respondent’s identity remained unresolved when Tribuna published.