Associated Incidents
A deepfake clone of Anthony Albanese has appeared on a new wave of AI-generated scam ads targeting Australians on YouTube, prompting demands for the tech giant and the government to do more to prevent them.
In the ads, Albanese speaks with an American accent as he promises that participants can earn an average of $35 per hour -- for what is not clear. "That's about $850 per day, which means over $25,000 per month," he says.
"Earnings grow daily as the system uses advanced technology and artificial intelligence to automate cryptocurrency trading."
The bizarre scam sends users to a website purporting to be for Canadian broadcaster CTV, spruiking how "citizens can officially receive up to $3000 per month".
"Greetings. From the first day I became prime minister, I wanted to improve the tax system. We will not fully get rid of taxes, of course, but any resident will be able to receive dividends from them," Albanese says, according to a fictional transcript that is part of the scam.
It asks people to invest $400 in a platform called AUFIRST to access the "dividend".
Scam ads fronted by high-profile people are not new -- and this is not the first time Albanese's likeness and voice have been used in one. In November, a video of Albanese ran on Facebook with artificially inserted audio making it sound like he was promoting investment schemes.
Other scam videos have used the images and voices of billionaires Elon Musk, Andrew Forrest and Gina Rinehart, and have typically been more common on Facebook. In response, Forrest took Facebook's owner Meta to court in the US over the scam, which revealed his likeness had been shown 230,000 times.
But this latest attempt is notable because YouTube is increasingly the way people are consuming shows on their TV screens. This particular scam ad is running on Australian TVs, according to people who have seen it.
A report by TV ratings company OzTAM found YouTube accounted for 7.7 per cent of all viewing on TV screens in the first quarter of this year. It was the second-biggest non free-to-air player, marginally behind Netflix's 9.3 per cent.
A spokesman for Google, which owns YouTube, said it appeared the ad had been removed, and the company used both human and automated reviews to block or remove 5.1 billion ads in 2024. "We prohibit ads that aim to scam people by falsely stating an endorsement from a public figure," he said.
Still, others aren't convinced. "Imagine if a major TV or radio station ran those ads, there'd be lawsuits running around quicker than you can say 'AI'," said advertising veteran Ben Willee, managing director of media and data at independent agency Spinach.
He said he has had some ads rejected from YouTube for reasons "that don't make sense".
Responsibility to protect users
"Yet, these global behemoths get a free pass for repurposing Australians scamming Australians. There's definitely a process, but it's clearly not effective."
Simon Clark, a lawyer who acts for Forrest in his case against Meta, said scams like this can be very sophisticated, but mean tech giants are not dedicating enough computing power to reviewing ads.
"Harmful content only slips through because of a failure to invest in computing power and appropriate reviews and controls," he said.
"The fact that advertising systems are fully automated does not absolve platforms of their responsibility to protect users from fraudulent advertising."
Financial Services Minister Daniel Mulino said the government was introducing codes for every sector under a scam prevention framework.
"Social media companies like YouTube must do more to stop hosting criminal content," he said. The government, he added, would be consulting with digital platforms to "finalise their obligations".