Martin wants to stop online scam ads. Good luck with that
‘We need to know who is behind all of this and why are the social media companies taking the revenue. These are ads that are defamatory, that are false’
Death, taxes and online scam ads. That’s what Micheál Martin was bemoaning this week, pointing out that fake articles using his image are still flooding social media networks, advertising cryptocurrency scams. The Tánaiste got a High Court injunction last December against Google, forcing the tech giant to give him details about who is behind the scam ads running on its network. But he said he is dismayed about how little is being done to curb the problem generally.
Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Eamon Ryan, Anne Doyle, Patrick Kielty, Colette Fitzpatrick and umpteen other public figures are now used to seeing their faces on scam ads on X, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
Even my own name is sometimes used — as a fake byline on some of the mocked-up articles that you land on if you click on the scam ads. Sometimes, it’s too much to bear. Broadcaster Miriam O’Callaghan got an apology from Facebook for years of ads that showed her face associated with fake ads on its platform.
Privately, several high-profile broadcasters have told me that they are annoyed with their mugs being used as scam bait on social media platforms but feel they can do little about it because the big tech companies claim to take down individual accounts only when notified, making it a game of whack-a-mole.
There can scarcely be a reader of this column who hasn’t seen one of these online traps. Click, or tap on the link provided and it takes you to a web page that’s styled as an established one from the Irish government, an Irish media organisation (like this one) or even an investment body like Enterprise Ireland. Click again on any link and you’re typically taken to a scam site that asks you to ‘sign up’ and give something, or — at a minimum — ‘log in’ using your Google, Facebook or Apple credentials, probably for future phishing.
A recent twist on the genre is ‘deepfake’ video scam ads, showing someone famous apparently alerting us to an incredible opportunity or warning us about something important to come.
Their lips and body movements appear to correlate with what they’re saying.
MANIPULATED IMAGES
“Yes, it’s true that I and my entourage have been earning money with this app, directly in our mobile phones for a few months,” says a deepfaked Leo Varadkar in one Instagram ad that also features manipulated versions of broadcaster Colette Fitzpatrick and Central Bank governor Gabriel Makhlouf.
The problem with these scam ads is that they sometimes work. I received an email in recent weeks from a reader telling me of significant losses related to a cryptocurrency investment they were entreated into making through one of these ads. The person is embarrassed about it, but is unlikely to get any compensation.
Should victims be a bit more streetwise? Maybe, although Micheál Martin had something to say on this too. “Some people say they’re obviously fake, but there is a broader story here,” he said this week. “Citizens get caught up in some of this and invest and can lose funding. We need to know who is behind all of this and why are the social media companies taking the revenue. These are ads that are defamatory, that are false. So I think I have an obligation to the public good to try and pursue this as far as I can.”
He has done that and is now “perusing” the information he got back. But he is not happy about the whole process. “As a deputy prime minister of the Government to have to go to those lengths to actually get some basic information as to who’s behind these fake ads, and false and defamatory ads, I think doesn’t augur well for citizens’ capacity to do likewise,” he said.
And the big tech companies’ response? Their stock reply is that they remove a million or a billion or a gazillion fraudulent pieces of content in any given period. Is it their absolute responsibility, though, to stop scam ads appearing on their mainstream platforms?
Apparently not. The problem is particularly egregious on X, where many of the current wave of scam ads are actually posted by ‘verified’, paying blue-ticked users. Even when the scam ad is taken down, their accounts remain untouched.
Death, taxes and online scam ads. Get used to it.