Description: Beginning in March 2025, purported deepfakes impersonating Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf were distributed via ads on Facebook and Instagram, promoting an alleged fraudulent investment group. Despite repeated takedowns, the ads have reportedly persisted under new accounts. Meta data reportedly showed at least 1,700 ads reached over 970,000 users in the EU alone. The impersonations allegedly used AI-generated visuals and voice clones to mimic Wolf's likeness and mislead users.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown deepfake technology developer and Unknown voice cloning technology developer developed an AI system deployed by Unknown scammers , Unknown fraudsters and Unknown scammers impersonating Martin Wolf, which harmed Martin Wolf , Financial Times and General public.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Instagram , Facebook , Unknown deepfake technology and Unknown voice cloning technology
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1113
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2025-03-09
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
I have an alter ego or, as it is now known on the internet, an avatar. My avatar looks like me and sounds at least a bit like me. He pops up constantly on Facebook and Instagram. Colleagues who understand social media far better than I do h…
Last week, Bank of Montreal chief investment strategist Brian Belski became the latest finance heavyweight to warn his social-media followers about imposters posing as him to scam investors.
Mr. Belski alluded to bogus Instagram and Faceboo…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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