A prominent British TV personality has criticized the lack of regulation of fraudulent internet advertising after a deepfake image of himself promoting investment fraud was published on Facebook.
Martin Lewis is a well-known figure in the UK who spent years educating the public on various money-saving tips.
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However, a few days ago an ad appeared featuring a deepfake video impersonating him. In it, the person was promoting a “quantum AI” investment plan allegedly backed by Elon Musk.
Lewis quickly debunked the video on social media.
“This is terrifying. I’ve never seen a deepfake video scam in which I’ve appeared.” he tweeted. “Governments and regulators must take action to stop big tech companies from exposing such dangerous fakes.People will lose money and their lives will be ruined.”
In fact, the controversial Online Safety Bill is currently passing through the House of Lords and has already been updated to include provisions on fraudulent advertising.
Lewis, who never promotes or promotes investments, urged his followers to ignore the video, which initially appeared to have gone viral on Facebook and Instagram.
“Now they have video and audio technology that perfectly reproduces my face and voice,” he told the BBC. “These people are trying to distort and destroy my reputation in order to steal money from vulnerable people.”
A Meta spokesperson claimed the social media giant quickly removed the ad in question.
“Our platform does not allow this type of advertising and the original video was proactively removed by our team,” they said. “We also removed a number of copycat ads using the same image.”
But the incident highlights just how mature deepfake technology has come in recent years, warned Sectigo’s SSL CTO Nick France.
“People don’t realize how advanced AI deepfake technology is and how democratized this technology is. AI is being used more and more by some,” he explained.
“As passwords are used less and less, biometrics have emerged as a reliable form of identity verification. It makes sense. may become useless.”
Lewis previously sued Mehta for defamation over false advertising on the platform using his name, after the tech giant changed the way it operated and promised to donate £3m to the charity Citizens Advice. , settled out of court.
Editorial image credit: chrisdorney / Shutterstock.com
