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The Star
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Keanu Reeves pays AI firm thousands a month to stop online imitators: report
Keanu Reeves often gets called the nicest, coolest A-lister in Hollywood. But he also has become known to cause problems for himself and his fans. The John Wick and Matrix star is probably the most impersonated celebrity on the Internet, which has forced him to pay a Seattle-based AI company thousands of dollars a month to find his online imitators and get companies like TikTok and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to shut them down. Reeves' battle against online scammers, using his likeness for romance scams, political messaging and other purposes, is described in a new story by The Hollywood Reporter . A writer for the entertainment industry publication went undercover, in a social media way, to spend time communicating with a fake Reeves account. At one point in June, Keanu_Reeves68667 tried to get the writer, Rebecca Keegan, to buy a bogus US$600 (RM 2,547) fan club membership in order to meet the actor "in person for sure." This entreaty came around the same time that the real Reeves was posing for photos on the red carpet with his girlfriend, artist Alexandra Grant, at the premiere for the John Wick spinoff Ballerina , Keegan said. Keegan also spent time with data scientist Luke Arrigoni. He runs a three-year-old company, Loti AI, which has become an industry leader in "likeness technology protection." It helps celebrities, athletes, business leaders and other public figures protect their images from unauthorised AI-generated content and deepfakes. With Reeves' permission, Arrigoni revealed to Keegan that Loti had issued nearly 40,000 account takedown orders on the actor's behalf over the past year. Reeves enlisted Arrigoni to do this work because he is well aware of the way his image is being manipulated online. "He cares very much about how his fans are treated, and he's very invested in trying to solve this problem," Arrigoni told the Hollywood Reporter . Reeves has become a draw for such scams because "pretty much everybody everywhere on Earth likes (him)," Keegan wrote. But in addition to being likable, Reeves also is "mysterious," Keegan said. He doesn't maintain a presence on social media and he limits what he shares about himself publicly. Meanwhile, the opportunists have used Reeves' likeness in a variety of ways. "In one subgenre of fakery, Reeves appears to hold up a T-shirt with political messaging on it, sometimes pro-left, some pro-right," Keegan reported. "In one doctored image, he seems to be endorsing Donald Trump. In another, he is raising awareness of the Indigenous children who were forced into abusive boarding schools in Canada. Most of these are photoshopped alterations of a Getty Images picture of Reeves attending a motorcycle fair in Italy in 2017." Once Loti issues its takedown orders to social media platforms, it typically takes the platforms about 48 hours to resolve the problem. Unfortunately, "in that brief window, scammers can do a lot of damage," Keegan reported. According to the latest data from the FBI, Americans reported US$672mil ( in losses to confidence and romance scams in 2024, Keegan reported. The targets of such scams tend to be people over the age of 60, with Keegan also reporting on the case of a 73-year-old woman who lost some US$100,000 (RM 424,599) to someone online impersonating Kevin Costner. This fake Costner convinced the woman to make weekly bitcoin deposits, saying the money would be used to start a new production company. "She also was lonely and restless as her marriage was failing, her career had ended and her kids and grandkids were busy with their own lives," Keegan wrote. "(Fake) Costner's messages represented some welcome male attention, a fantasy to drop into when real life got too real." At one point, this woman received a photo of the actor, leaning against the wooden headboard of a bed. Fake Costner was holding up a piece of paper that read, "It's really me Kevin Costner. I love you so much... i can't wait to meet you." – Silicon Valley, San Jose, Calif./Tribune News Service
Time of India
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Keanu Reeves fights back: Spends big to delete imposters from TikTok and Meta
Keanu Reeves is tackling fake social media accounts. Scammers use his image for ads and romance scams. Reeves employs a firm to remove these accounts from platforms like TikTok and Meta. Other celebrities like Tom Hanks and Jamie Lee Curtis also face similar issues with AI-generated impersonations. The rise of deepfakes prompts calls for regulations. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Why is Keanu Reeves being impersonated so often? Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads What kind of scams are fakes running in his name? Who else is battling AI-generated celebrity fakes? FAQs Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Even though Keanu Reeves is well-known for not being on social media, that hasn't stopped scammers from using his voice and face to trick fans. Now, the actor we all love is taking matters into his own hands. He is quietly paying for a nonstop fight to get rid of fake accounts on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook that pretend to be Reeves is reportedly paying thousands each month to a firm called Loti to scrub fake accounts and AI-generated scams misusing his likeness from TikTok and to a detailed report by The Hollywood Reporter, Reeves employs a business named Loti to remove tens of thousands of social media accounts annually. As impersonations rise, Reeves joins other famous people in the fight against fake news online as AI deepfakes and scam campaigns become harder to stop, reported to THR, Keanu Reeves may be the most impersonated celebrity online because of his lack of an official social media presence and blockbuster status, which casts a shadow over his private order to fill the gap, scammers are fabricating images of Reeves posing as him, promoting dubious goods, and, in the worst situations, setting up phony Keanu Reeves accounts that cultivate relationships with their victims in an effort to persuade them to give them appears that generative AI is making it easier and more convincing than ever to use Reeves as scam Reeves is not the only one. In fact, there have been several well-publicized instances where celebrities have voiced their displeasure with fraudulent advertisements. Tom Hanks alerted fans in 2023 that an online advertisement for a dental plan was using an AI version of his image without his a series of videos made by someone posing as his niece went viral last year, Morgan Freeman thanked fans for warning him about AI-generated voice impersonations on the internet, as per a report by Lee Curtis had to make an Instagram post pleading with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in May of this year after the company refused to remove an AI-generated advertisement featuring her image for "some bullshit that I didn't authorize, agree to, or endorse."The head of strategic development at CAA, Alexandra Shannon, told THR that artists are becoming more concerned about this problem and that laws and regulations are needed to stop scammers use his image in advertisements and romance he is famously offline, making impersonation easier.
Express Tribune
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Keanu Reeves deepfake scam highlights rise in AI celebrity impersonation fraud
Scammers are leveraging AI tools and social media to impersonate celebrities like Keanu Reeves and Kevin Costner, tricking vulnerable fans into sending large sums of money. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter's Rebecca Keegan, one victim, 73-year-old Margaret, left her husband and spent over $100,000 in bitcoin believing she was in a romantic relationship with Costner. The scam unraveled when she arrived at a hotel expecting to meet him — only to receive a fake photo of a car crash and realize she'd been deceived. Margaret's story is one of many in a growing wave of AI-fueled romance and confidence scams exploiting celebrity fandom. According to the FBI, Americans lost $672 million to such scams in 2024 alone, with seniors being the most affected group. Experts say scammers often impersonate older male stars with broad appeal, using AI-generated voice memos and doctored images to build emotional trust and manipulate victims. 'These scams are industrialized and psychologically manipulative,' said Erin West, a former California prosecutor leading an international anti-fraud effort. 'It overwhelms normal reasoning — it's cult-like.' Some scammers are themselves victims of human trafficking, trapped in cyber-fraud compounds across Southeast Asia and forced to work long hours. In response, celebrities like Keanu Reeves have hired companies like Loti to track and take down impersonator accounts — issuing tens of thousands of takedown orders annually. Reeves is considered one of the most impersonated stars online, largely due to his popularity and low public profile. Meanwhile, legislation like the proposed No Fakes Act is gaining traction in Congress to better protect the likenesses of public figures. Experts and insiders warn that without stronger regulation and accountability from platforms like Meta, the cycle will persist — with more victims like Margaret caught in its wake.
CNBC
19-06-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Google is using YouTube videos to train its AI video generator
Google is using its expansive library of YouTube videos to train its artificial intelligence models, including Gemini and the Veo 3 video and audio generator, CNBC has learned. The tech company is turning to its catalog of 20 billion YouTube videos to train these new-age AI tools, according to a person who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. Google confirmed to CNBC that it relies on its vault of YouTube videos to train its AI models, but the company said it only uses a subset of its videos for the training and that it honors specific agreements with creators and media companies. "We've always used YouTube content to make our products better, and this hasn't changed with the advent of AI," said a YouTube spokesperson in a statement. "We also recognize the need for guardrails, which is why we've invested in robust protections that allow creators to protect their image and likeness in the AI era — something we're committed to continuing." Such use of YouTube videos has the potential to lead to an intellectual property crisis for creators and media companies, experts said. While YouTube says it has shared this information previously, experts who spoke with CNBC said it's not widely understood by creators and media organizations that Google is training its AI models using its video library. YouTube didn't say how many of the 20 billion videos on its platform or which ones are used for AI training. But given the platform's scale, training on just 1% of the catalog would amount to 2.3 billion minutes of content, which experts say is more than 40 times the training data used by competing AI models. The company shared in a blog post published in September that YouTube content could be used to "improve the product experience … including through machine learning and AI applications." Users who have uploaded content to the service have no way of opting out of letting Google train on their videos. "It's plausible that they're taking data from a lot of creators that have spent a lot of time and energy and their own thought to put into these videos," said Luke Arrigoni, CEO of Loti, a company that works to protect digital identity for creators. "It's helping the Veo 3 model make a synthetic version, a poor facsimile, of these creators. That's not necessarily fair to them." CNBC spoke with multiple leading creators and IP professionals, none were aware or had been informed by YouTube that their content could be used to train Google's AI models. The revelation that YouTube is training on its users' videos is noteworthy after Google in May announced Veo 3, one of the most advanced AI video generators on the market. In its unveiling, Google showcased cinematic-level video sequences, including a scene of an old man on a boat and another showing Pixar-like animals talking with one another. The entirety of the scenes, both the visual and the audio, were entirely AI generated. According to YouTube, an average of 20 million videos are uploaded to the platform each day by independent creators by nearly every major media company. Many creators say they are now concerned they may be unknowingly helping to train a system that could eventually compete with or replace them. "It doesn't hurt their competitive advantage at all to tell people what kind of videos they train on and how many they trained on," Arrigoni said. "The only thing that it would really impact would be their relationship to creators." Even if Veo 3's final output does not directly replicate existing work, the generated content fuels commercial tools that could compete with the creators who made the training data possible, all without credit, consent or compensation, experts said. When uploading a video to the platform, the user is agreeing that YouTube has a broad license to the content. "By providing Content to the Service, you grant to YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to use that Content," the terms of service read. "We've seen a growing number of creators discover fake versions of themselves circulating across platforms — new tools like Veo 3 are only going to accelerate the trend," said Dan Neely, CEO of Vermillio, which helps individuals protect their likeness from being misused and also facilitates secure licensing of authorized content. Neely's company has challenged AI platforms for generating content that allegedly infringes on its clients' intellectual property, both individual and corporate. Neely says that although YouTube has the right to use this content, many of the content creators who post on the platform are unaware that their videos are being used to train video-generating AI software. Vermillio uses a proprietary tool called Trace ID to asses whether an AI-generated video has significant overlap with a human-created video. Trace ID assigns scores on a scale of zero to 100. Any score over 10 for a video with audio is considered meaningful, Neely said. In one example cited by Neely, a video from YouTube creator Brodie Moss closely matched content generated by Veo 3. Trace ID attributed a score of 71 to the original video with the audio alone scoring over 90. Some creators told CNBC they welcome the opportunity to use Veo 3, even if it may have been trained on their content. "I try to treat it as friendly competition more so than these are adversaries," said Sam Beres, a creator with 10 million subscribers on YouTube. "I'm trying to do things positively because it is the inevitable —but it's kind of an exciting inevitable." Google includes an indemnification clause for its generative AI products, including Veo, which means that if a user faces a copyright challenge over AI-generated content, Google will take on legal responsibility and cover the associated costs. YouTube announced a partnership with Creative Artists Agency in December to develop access for top talent to identify and manage AI-generated content that features their likeness. YouTube also has a tool for creators to request a video to be taken down if they believe it abuses their likeness. However, Arrigoni said that the tool hasn't been reliable for his clients. YouTube also allows creators to opt out of third party training from select AI companies including Amazon, Apple and Nvidia, but users are not able to stop Google from training for its own models. The Walt Disney Company and Universal filed a joint lawsuit last Wednesday against the AI image generator Midjourney, alleging copyright infringement, the first lawsuit of its kind out of Hollywood. "The people who are losing are the artists and the creators and the teenagers whose lives are upended," said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., in May at a Senate hearing about the use of AI to replicate the likeness of humans. "We've got to give individuals powerful enforceable rights and their images in their property in their lives back again or this is just never going to stop."
STV News
26-05-2025
- Business
- STV News
Island businesses say 'no sign' of promised £4.4m amid ferry crisis
Businesses on South Uist are calling on the Scottish Government to come good on their promise of £4.4m of resilience funds for those worst affected by the ongoing ferry crisis. The Government's original announcement came one month ago, the day before transport minister Fiona Hyslop travelled to the island to attend South Uist Business Impact Group's (SUBIG) crisis meeting, where over 50 businesses presented testimony on how the ferry crisis has affected them in the hopes of discussing a way forward. However, since the meeting, the business group has heard no further mention of the fund. John Daniel Peteranna, director of local community landowner Storas Uist, said: 'Uist has suffered a severely reduced ferry service all this year. 'Island businesses stand ready to work with the government on how the fund might work, but are disappointed at the government's slow approach. 'This fund is urgently needed to ensure island businesses can survive until the ferry service improves.' The call comes after South Uist's ferry, the Lord of the Isles, returned to its home port of Lochboisdale for the first time since Hogmanay. Saturday saw the first service between South Uist and its 'usual' mainland port of Mallaig for almost six months. Loti is the only 'large' ferry in CalMac's fleet capable of entering Mallaig harbour while also able to travel out to South Uist. At 37 years old, it is one of the oldest in the fleet and prone to breakdowns. Last September, a fire in the engine room during the crossing led to its removal from service for weeks, further disrupting the island's economy. The return of the island's ferry also means the island's full summer timetable can finally commence, albeit two months later than planned. This shorter route to Mallaig, only three and a half hours instead of the five and a half hours to Oban that businesses, families and other travellers have endured for the past six months, also means South Uist will benefit from two sailings a day on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays in the full summer timetable. But, as the MV Lord of the Isles slunk into her berth on Friday evening, shrouded by squalls of long absent rain, islanders know that this full summer timetable will last for only two weeks. For most of June and July, CalMac is cutting one service a week to the island and redirecting two others to distant Oban instead of Mallaig. 'Island businesses and families need a timetable they can rely on', Mr Peteranna added. 'We shouldn't live in fear of our service being cut every time there's a problem somewhere else in CalMac's fleet. We call on the government to present the details of the resilience fund.' With its regular ferry returning from helping out on routes to islands CalMac prioritises above South Uist, there is cautious optimism from hospitality and other businesses that something might yet be made of the summer season. A Scottish Government spokesperson said: 'Scotland's island communities and businesses face many challenges, we recognise the need to provide additional targeted support and that is why we have allocated an initial £4.4m to establish a resilience fund to support island businesses. 'People and businesses need to have confidence in ferry services running reliably and frequently to support their livelihoods, among many other factors and it is clear that any delays or maintenance to vessels can create real difficulties and we are determined to do everything we can to support islands, local businesses and employers through these challenging times. 'We are currently working at pace with partners to refine eligibility criteria and so that we can open for applications as soon as possible.' Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
