<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/08/deepfakes-of-australian-politicians-including-penny-wong-and-katy-gallagher-used-in-investment-scams>
"Images of the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, and the foreign minister,
Penny Wong, have been used in deepfake investment scam videos in the latest
examples of a concerning trend of politicians being used in online fraud.
The Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie and the former prime minister Scott
Morrison have also had their faces used in scams through Facebook videos that
appear to be generated by AI, with more than a dozen examples this week of paid
ads reaching thousands of Australians before being removed.
“I want to be clear that I, or any other politician, would never spruik
products or investment opportunities to Australians online,” Gallagher said.
Stephen Jones, the federal minister responsible for anti-scam work, has warned
that artificial intelligence could “turbocharge” fraud and has flagged looming
reforms to compel social media companies to do more.
Guardian Australia has uncovered dozens of ads that have recently run on
Facebook that appear to be part of a coordinated network of scam activity. The
image of McKenzie has been used in a large number of them, with a recent
appearance on
Sky News with host Chris Kenny being manipulated to make it
seem as though the journalist and politician were spruiking an investment where
“every Australian will receive $7,700 in the first week”.
The videos appear to have used AI to manipulate the vision and voices of
McKenzie and Kenny, as well as other politicians such as Wong, Morrison and
Gallagher.
Kenny warned viewers during his
Sky News program on Wednesday that the images
were a scam.
At least 11 different pages have posted exactly the same video, reaching
thousands of Australians through Facebook’s promoted ad network. Some pages
posting this scam and similar others have admins based in countries including
Ukraine and Vietnam, or paid in currencies including the Singaporean dollar,
Peruvian sol, Brazilian real, Mexican peso, Danish krone and Egyptian pound."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
