Incident 875: Coordinated Deepfake Campaign Reportedly Impersonating Rishi Sunak Promoted Fraudulent Quantum AI Investment Platform on Meta

Description: 143 deepfake ads, over 100 of which reportedly impersonated former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, were promoted on Meta's platform to advertise the fraudulent investment scheme "Quantum AI." Funding for the ads reportedly originated from 23 countries. Up to 462,000 users may have been exposed to the false content. The campaign used generative AI tools to create high-quality misinformation, including spoofed BBC news clips for added legitimacy

Editor Notes: Reconstructing the timeline of events: (1) August 12, 2023: Reported start of the deepfake ad campaign on Meta; (2) August 1, 2024: End of the one-month investigation period during which Fenimore Harper identified 143 deepfake ads; (3) January 13, 2024: Fenimore Harper publishes its findings. Read the full report here: https://www.fenimoreharper.com/s/FENIMORE-HARPER-REPORT_-DEEP-FAKED-POLITICAL-ADS-V2.pdf. The full list of 143 identified ads by Fenimore Harper can be accessed here: https://www.fenimoreharper.com/s/Deepfake-Finance-Scam_-Full-List-of-Ads.xlsx.

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Alleged: Unknown deepfake technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Quantum AI scammers, which harmed Rishi Sunak , Quantum AI victims , Meta users and BBC News presenters.

Implicated AI system: Unknown deepfake technology apps

Incident Stats

Incident ID

875

Report Count

Incident Date

2024-01-08

Editors

Daniel Atherton

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Slew of deepfake video adverts of Sunak on Facebook raises alarm over AI risk to election

theguardian.com

Over 100 Deep-Faked Rishi Sunak Ads Found on Meta’s Platform

fenimoreharper.com

theguardian.com · 2024

More than 100 deepfake video advertisements impersonating Rishi Sunak were paid to be promoted on Facebook in the last month alone, according to research that has raised alarm about the risk AI poses before the general election.

The adverts…

fenimoreharper.com · 2024

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Over 100 deep-fake video advertisements impersonating Prime Minister Rishi Sunak were paid to be promoted on Meta's platform in the last month.
These ads may have reached over 400,000 people, despite explicitly breakin…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.