Tag Archives: fake

Filipinos shared an online post claiming that Meta, the American multinational company operating Facebook (FB), launched a new ad campaign optimization tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI) called MetaAI. This is fake.

The Aug. 24 post by FB page Meta.Ai carries a link to a website where users are baited into downloading and installing a Windows program infected with a computer virus called Trojan. 

VERA Files has reached out to Meta but the company has yet to issue a statement about this.

This bogus post used the name of Meta AI, an academic research laboratory under Meta which has produced AI-based projects such as videos generated from text and speech recognition.

Meta offers application programming interfaces (APIs) as well as a set of AI-based tools…

We have seen a number of fake headshots of former president Donald Trump spread online, following his surrender in the US state of Georgia on charges of plotting to overturn the state’s election results. Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing and described the case against him as a “travesty of justice”.

One image shared on social media was likely created using an AI image generator and has been spreading since at least April.

One major giveaway is the jumbled letters behind him—AI often struggles to correctly recreate text, resulting in garbled words in some AI-generated images. 

Mr Trump posted his real mugshot on Twitter, now known as X, with the words “Election interference” and “Never surrender!”

The genuine mugshot was also released to media

Hundreds of people across the UK have shared hoax appeals for information about a supposedly missing five-year-old named Bella Heather. 

Full Fact has seen examples of the posts in Doncaster (South Yorkshire), Whaley Bridge (Derbyshire), Hastings (East Sussex), Longton (Staffordshire), Dumfries and Galloway, Silsden (West Yorkshire), Wrexham, Stockport (Greater Manchester), Dewsbury (West Yorkshire) and Otley (West Yorkshire). 

All of the posts have very similar text, which says: “My niece Bella Heather she’s 5years old has been missing for 7hours. She was last seen playing with her pup on our pourch [sic] in #doncaster [or relevant location].

“An amber alert has been activated. Please keep our sweet girl in your prayers and thoughts help bump this post. She…

Renowned Australian computer scientist and entrepreneur Craig Wright, who controversially claims to be the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto, has unveiled groundbreaking insights into the future trajectory of the world’s pioneering cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC).

Wright, referencing the seminal Bitcoin whitepaper released in 2008, offered significant prognostications that could potentially redefine the way BTC operates on a broader scale.

The self-proclaimed Nakamoto asserted that the forthcoming stages of Bitcoin’s evolution would witness a paradigm shift in the roles of network participants. The scientist outlined a vision where the initial dominance of individual users…

SoftBank seeks to sue a social app it had once invested in, IRL at a $1.1 billion valuation.

It is suing the now-defunct company for fraud, alleging $150 million in damages.

Background

IRL had the potential to become an event organizing alternative for Gen Z, who are using Facebook less and less.

It sought to materialize on this and its self-reported numbers were impressive enough to earn a $170 million Series C funding led by SoftBank in 2021.

However, earlier this summer, an internal investigation by its own board of directors found that 95% of the app’s users were fake.

False user download claims

SoftBank explains that it was encouraged to invest due to its impressive user numbers.

The app claimed it had been downloaded by 25% of U.S. teens under 28 years old and was growing at…