Ahead of this year’s UK general election, Facebook has been flooded with fake ads featuring fake Rishi Sunak. research was conducted by communications company Fenimore Harper. The firm found 143 different ads impersonating the UK Prime Minister on the social network last month, which it believes reached more than 400,000 people. He also said that ad funding came from 23 countries, including Turkey, Malaysia, the Philippines and the United States, and that the total amount of money spent on promoting ads from December 8, 2023 to January 8, 2024 was $16,500.
whom Guardian Records showed in one of the fake ads BBC Sunak said that the British government has decided to invest in the stock exchange program launched by Elon Musk. The clip was later reported to be related to a fake BBC news page promoting an investment scam. Video posted on Fenimore Harper’s website, it looks pretty realistic if the viewer doesn’t look too closely at people’s mouths while they’re talking. A person who has no idea what deepfakes are can easily be fooled into thinking the video is legitimate.
The company says it is “the first widespread paid advertisement of a fake video of a UK political figure”. However, Meta has long been fighting election disinformation on its websites and apps. A spokesman said Guardian that the “vast majority” of ads were removed before Fenimore Harper’s report was published and that “less than 0.5 percent of UK users saw any individual ad that went live”.
Meta announced late last year, it will require advertisers to disclose whether their ads have been digitally altered if they are political or social in nature. It will begin enforcing the rule this year in the hope it can help reduce the expected spread of fake news surrounding the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
