Fake Ads Impersonate the BBC, Defraud Consumers
Scammers are using Facebook ads featuring fake news articles by the BBC to defraud users.
- Fake news articles featuring reputable names and falsely endorsing cryptocurrency investments are gaining traction on Facebook.
- These articles are generated by AI and made to look like they are coming from reputable sources.
- British consumer watchdog Which? believes that the platforms are at fault.
Fraudsters are exploiting Facebook’s advertising platform to spread fake AI-generated news articles from the BBC endorsing cryptocurrency investment schemes.
Jane Wakefield, a technology reporter at the BBC, noted that Facebook was showing people fake ads featuring news articles that follow the BBC template and have her by-line, except she never wrote any of them. Alarming, to say the least.
It turns out that these fraudsters would use AI models to generate articles and then place the names of reputable authors as the authors. Some of these articles featured celebrities like British broadcaster and presenter Zoe Ball, English television presenter and journalist Jeremy Clarkson, and English broadcaster Chris Tarrant. See a pattern? All these articles centered around cryptocurrency investment. They all falsely claim that these celebrities have gathered a fortune through cryptocurrency. Neither the interviews nor the endorsement is real.
How Did These End up on Facebook?
According to Tony Gee, a senior consultant at cybersecurity firm Penn Test Partners, who spoke with the BBC, the scammers likely employ paid-for Facebook adverts to spread their fraudulent content. They would use redirect commands to swiftly reroute users to harmful websites once Facebook approves their ads. That’s called cloaking. The redirects would then allow the scammers to obscure the true nature of the URLs. The platform’s safeguards couldn’t then identify and remove fraudulent content promptly.
In one instance, a woman was scammed out of £250 by a fake Instagram advertisement. It featured ITV journalist Robert Peston, a presenter that the woman trusted. She trusted the endorsement so much that not only did she invest money, but she also shared sensitive personal information. Que the scammers relentlessly harassing her to try and get more money out of her. The man then took to X (formerly known as Twitter), saying:
So, who’s to be held accountable for this? The victims or the platforms whose safeguards failed to detect the fraudulent advertisements?
British consumer watchdog ‘Which?’ believes the latter is at fault here. Its director of policy and advocacy, Rocio Concha, explained to the BBC that the consumer could not be held at fault here as these scammers are impersonating trusted brands and “people often don’t know they’re looking at a scam or a deepfake until it’s too late.” She then urged Ofcom, the U.K.’s communications regulator, to use its powers provided by the Online Safety Act to “ensure that online platforms are verifying the legitimacy of their advertisers to prevent scammers reaching consumers.”
No matter how digitally literate a person is, something still manages to slip through the cracks sometimes. It is these platforms’ responsibility to patch these cracks.
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