Internet personality and actor Adam Conover has come under fire for promoting the Sam Altman-backed crypto project, World Chain

Internet personality and actor Adam Conover has come under fire for promoting the Sam Altman-backed crypto project, World Chain (WLD), and an Instagram post has sparked criticism and speculation online.

The project has faced backlash in several countries due to data privacy concerns. Most recently, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital has temporarily suspended the platform.

Adam Conover is well-known on the internet for being the host of the half-hour truTV show Adam Ruins Everything, where he debunks commonly held beliefs through an investigative logical approach.

Many found it ironic that Conover is now approaching the World project without much skepticism, a stark contrast to his internet persona which seemed to scrutinize things instead of buying into them so lightly.

“Even in the crypto space, Worldcoin is well-known to be a huge invasion of privacy and absolutely predatory. Adam - someone who’s entire shtick is deep research on popular topics - has no reason to not have known what he was promoting. Really disappointing,” said one Reddit user.

“And finally, with his work complete, Adam had ruined everything else, so he turned his power inward and ruined himself,” another user remarked.

Some have also highlighted the fact that the part of the video where Adam Conover is supposedly scanning his eye on an Orb, it is only shown very briefly. This prompted some users to accuse him of not really trusting the technology himself, yet he encourages other people to do so.

The World Network had previously been banned and scrutinized in countries like Indonesia, Brazil and Hong Kong over privacy concerns due to its iris-scanning verification.

Most recently, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital had suspended the platform on May 5 in light of complaints about suspicious activities related to the platform.

The project has declared that it would allow users to delete their unique iris code permanently, effectively “un-verifying” their World IDs. It has also clarified that the verification data stays on the user’s device and is not shared to any third-parties.