Latest news with #OversightBoard
Hans India
2 days ago
- Business
- Hans India
Meta Faces Heat Over Celebrity Deepfake Scams on Facebook, Oversight Board Warns
Meta is under renewed scrutiny after its Oversight Board flagged a troubling rise in AI deepfake scams, particularly those misusing celebrity identities for deceptive ads. In a recent decision, the board overturned Meta's choice to keep up a Facebook post featuring an AI-generated deepfake of Brazilian football legend Ronaldo Nazário promoting a gambling app. Despite more than 50 user reports, the ad remained online and racked up over 600,000 views before being taken down. The Oversight Board stated this case highlights broader issues with Meta's enforcement of its own policies against impersonation and scams. It criticized the tech giant for enabling large-scale scam content, noting that content reviewers often lack the authority and training to act on AI-generated deepfakes unless there's a direct escalation. According to the board, reviewers face inconsistent enforcement guidelines, which vary by region, making scam detection uneven and unreliable. The ad in question promoted a game called Plinko and was among thousands found in Meta's Ad Library. Many of these reportedly featured deepfaked videos of other celebrities, including Cristiano Ronaldo and even Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. The board issued a single but significant recommendation: Meta must strengthen its internal policies, empower its moderators, and train them to recognize hallmarks of AI-manipulated media. In response, Meta pushed back, saying the board's assessment was 'simply inaccurate.' The company pointed to an ongoing pilot program using facial recognition to detect such scams and emphasized its broader safety tools and enforcement strategies. Still, Meta's efforts appear insufficient. Earlier this year, several deepfake scam ads featuring Elon Musk and other public figures made the rounds, with some running for weeks despite clear signs of manipulation. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis recently criticized Meta publicly for failing to remove a fake ad featuring her likeness until she intervened directly. The Oversight Board isn't alone in raising alarms. A Wall Street Journal report revealed that nearly half of all scam reports on Zelle for JPMorgan Chase originated from Meta platforms. Regulators in the UK and Australia have also highlighted similar trends. As AI tools become more accessible, the misuse of deepfakes for fraud is accelerating. Critics argue that without stricter ad oversight and enforcement, Meta risks becoming a breeding ground for online scams.
The Verge
3 days ago
- Business
- The Verge
The Oversight Board says Meta has an AI deepfake problem.
On Thursday, the Oversight Board overturned Meta's decision to leave up a Facebook post showing an AI deepfake of Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo Nazário in an ad for a gambling app. The ad was viewed more than 600,000 times and received more than 50 reports. The Oversight Board points to a larger problem at Meta, saying it is 'likely allowing significant amounts of scam content on its platforms' and that reviewers aren't 'empowered' to enforce the platform's policy against deepfake scams.
Engadget
3 days ago
- Business
- Engadget
The Oversight Board says Meta isn't doing enough to fight celeb deepfake scams
Scams using AI deepfakes of celebrities have become an increasingly prominent issue for Meta over the last couple of years. Now, the Oversight Board has weighed in and has seemingly confirmed what other critics have said: Meta isn't doing enough to enforce its own rules, and makes it far too easy for scammers to get away with these schemes. "Meta is likely allowing significant amounts of scam content on its platforms to avoid potentially overenforcing a small subset of genuine celebrity endorsements," the board wrote in its latest decision. "At-scale reviewers are not empowered to enforce this prohibition on content that establishes a fake persona or pretends to be a famous person in order to scam or defraud." That conclusion came as the result of a case involving an ad for an online casino-style game called Plinko that used an AI-manipulated video of Ronaldo Nazário, a retired Brazilian soccer player. The ad, which according to the board showed obvious signs of being fake, was not removed by Meta even after it was reported as a scam more than 50 times. Meta later removed the ad, but not the underlying Facebook post behind it until the Oversight Board agreed to review the case. It was viewed more than 600,000 times. The board says that the case highlights fundamental flaws in how Meta approaches content moderation for reported scams involving celebrities and public figures. The board says that Meta told its members that "it enforces the policy only on escalation to ensure the person depicted in the content did not actually endorse the product" and that individual reviewers' "interpretation of what constitutes a 'fake persona' could vary across regions and introduce inconsistencies in enforcement.' The result, according to the Oversight Board, is that a "significant" amount of scam content is likely slipping through the cracks. In its sole recommendation to Meta, the board urged the company should update its internal guidelines, empower content reviewers to identify such scams and train them on "indicators" of AI-manipulated content. In a statement, a spokesperson for Meta said that "many of the Board's claims are simply inaccurate" and pointed to a test it began last year that uses facial recognition technology to fight "celeb-bait" scams. 'Scams have grown in scale and complexity in recent years, driven by ruthless cross-border criminal networks," the spokesperson said. "As this activity has become more persistent and sophisticated, so have our efforts to combat it. We're testing the use of facial recognition technology, enforcing aggressively against scams, and empowering people to protect themselves through many different on platform safety tools and warnings. While we appreciate the Oversight Board's views in this case, many of the Board's claims are simply inaccurate and we will respond to the full recommendation in 60 days in accordance with the bylaws.' Scams using AI deepfakes of celebrities has become a major problem for Meta as AI tech gets cheaper and more easily accessible. Earlier this year, I reported that dozens of pages were running ads featuring deepfakes of Elon Musk and Fox News personalities promoting supplements that claimed to cure diabetes. Some of these pages repeatedly ran hundreds of versions of these ads with seemingly few repercussions. Meta disabled some of the pages after my reporting, but similar scam ads persist on Facebook to this day. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis also recently publicly slammed Mark Zuckerberg for not removing a deepfaked Facebook ad that featured her (Meta removed the ad after her public posts). The Oversight Board similarly highlighted the scale of the problem in this case, noting that it found thousands of video ads promoting the Plinko app in Meta's Ad Library. It said that several of these featured AI deepfakes, including ads featuring another Brazilian soccer star, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Meta's own CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The Oversight Board isn't the only group that's raised the alarm about scams on Meta's platforms. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Meta "accounted for nearly half of all reported scams on Zelle for JPMorgan Chase between the summers of 2023 and 2024" and that "British and Australian regulators have found similar levels of fraud originating on Meta's platforms." The paper noted that Meta is "reluctant" to add friction to its ad-buying process and that the company "balks" at banning advertisers, even those with a history of conducting scams. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
Hans India
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
Oversight Board seeks public opinion to restore or remove child abuse videos on Meta
New Delhi: The independent Oversight Board on Wednesday has sought opinion of general public to restore or remove child abuse videos on Meta. The Board, an independent body of 22 global human rights and freedom of expression experts from across the political spectrum and the world, is reviewing two videos which show teachers hitting children in school settings. 'The review will explore the key tension between sharing content depicting non-sexual child abuse to shed light on wrongdoing and demand accountability, and the need to protect children's safety, dignity, and privacy,' the Board said in a statement. Both videos were initially removed by Meta for violating the Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Nudity policy, later one was allowed on the platform 'with a newsworthy allowance and warning screen'. The policy states the company removes content depicting 'real or non-real non-sexual child abuse regardless of sharing intent...' 'Allowing non-sexual child abuse content in an awareness-raising or condemnation context risks re-traumatising the victim, while prohibiting such content may be viewed as infringing on the public's ability to be informed,' said Meta, in its referral to the Board. In view of this, the Oversight Board opened a public comment period and is seeking comments from stakeholders on the complex issues surrounding online depictions of child abuse. The comments are sought on 'the impact on victim, responsibilities of the platform, human rights considerations for content moderation, effects on accountability, and standards for protective reporting'. The public comment window will remain open until 23:59 Pacific Time (12:29 pm IST) on Wednesday May 21, the statement said. It added that the comments can be short, or up to five pages long, and can include links to external sources and research. The comments will 'form a vital part of the Board's decision-making process on whether content should be removed or restored and can help shape our recommendations on how Meta should improve its policies and processes', the Board said.
Business Wire
01-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Public Statement of Certain PREPA Bondholders
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Certain bondholders of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority ('PREPA'), including, Assured Guaranty Inc., GoldenTree Asset Management LP, National Public Finance Guarantee Corporation, the PREPA Ad Hoc Group and Syncora Guarantee, Inc., today issued the following statement: The recent island-wide power outage, which left the people in Puerto Rico without electricity during Holy Week, was devastating for residents. The outage showed yet again the complete failure of the Financial Oversight and Management Board (the 'Oversight Board') to manage PREPA effectively to deliver reliable and affordable power to Puerto Rico's people. The people of Puerto Rico deserve better. They deserve a power grid that works, with reasonable and affordable rates. The Oversight Board has had nearly a decade to fix PREPA, yet the frequency of blackouts and service interruptions has continued to worsen. Meanwhile, under the Oversight Board's supervision, PREPA has failed to access most of the billions in aid the federal government has made available to bring PREPA's electric grid up to mainland U.S. standards. This is because while PREPA sits in bankruptcy, it cannot access the public markets to raise the funds needed to restore and repair its power grid so that it can then obtain reimbursement from federal funds. The Oversight Board's decision to keep PREPA in bankruptcy is therefore a significant contributing factor to the increase in blackouts. Instead of completing the bankruptcy process so that PREPA can raise the funds needed to repair the grid, the Oversight Board has needlessly extended the case by making and then breaking numerous settlements with bondholders, and by choosing to waste years taking increasingly frivolous legal positions, including two rehearing petitions after a federal court of appeals declared that bondholders have a properly perfected lien on PREPA's net revenues and have a claim for the full $8.2 billion they lent PREPA plus accrued interest. Implausibly, after losing repeatedly at the federal appellate court, the Oversight Board is now pivoting to the new position that PREPA has no net revenues, contradicting years of PREPA's own financial reports and the Oversight Board's own prior fiscal plans. This litigious approach needlessly prolongs PREPA's bankruptcy, further delays repair of the grid, saddles Puerto Rico's citizens with massive fees paid to the Oversight Board's numerous consultants and advisors, and most unfortunately, leaves the people of Puerto Rico in the dark. As part of this litigation strategy, the Oversight Board has attempted to blame PREPA's bondholders for PREPA's current state of affairs. But the bondholders provided billions in financing for PREPA's electric grid, and have not received a penny from PREPA in nearly a decade. None of PREPA's rate increases since its bankruptcy case began in 2017 have been used to repay its debt. If the Oversight Board genuinely shares the bondholders' goal of fixing PREPA, it should seek a reasonable agreement that enables PREPA to promptly emerge from bankruptcy as a credit-worthy utility with proper financing, allows PREPA to provide power at reasonable rates, puts federal dollars to work, and focuses on effective management of the system for Puerto Rico's residents. The PREPA bondholders have made proposals to the Oversight Board that would achieve these objectives, including one made six months ago, which would have provided an additional $2.5 billion in funding from the bondholders to immediately begin fixing and upgrading Puerto Rico's electric grid. Despite the Oversight Board's rejection of the bondholders' most recent offer (as has happened with all of the bondholders' proposals to end PREPA's bankruptcy), it remains on the table. The Oversight Board should engage in good faith to end PREPA's bankruptcy on consensual terms. It's what Puerto Rico's people deserve.
