Billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has slammed Facebook for not doing enough to prevent scams after a new deepfake video began circulating online.
The deepfake video used a genuine Forrest chat that was uploaded by the Rhodes Trust and manipulated it into a cryptocurrency scam.
Cybertrace experts uncovered the fake video on Facebook.
“It was quite sophisticated in one sense but then again the video quality was quite poor,” Cybertrace CEO Dan Halpin said.
“Certain software can detect a deepfake and that’s the type of technology that the social media giants need to employ.”
Forrest said it was reprehensible that Facebook made a deliberate business decision to harm Australians by refusing to spend the software engineering dollars needed to upgrade their systems to detect these AI ads.
The billionaire has criminal charges pending against Facebook for another alleged crypto advertising scam using his image.
“Facebook does nothing – that’s what I hope the legal actions I started will address, to make social media companies liable for the negligent way they run their ad platforms,” Forrest said in a statement.
“I commenced legal proceedings almost two years ago out of concern for the innocent Australians being scammed on Facebook.
“It is as important now as it was in 2019 when we first demanded Facebook be accountable for what transpires on its platform.
“The legal actions were taken on behalf of those everyday Australians – mums and dads, grans and grandads – who work all their lives to gather their savings and to ensure those savings aren’t swindled away by scammers.
“I want social media companies to use more of their vast resources and billions of dollars in annual revenue to protect vulnerable people – the people who are targeted and fall victim to these horrible scams with their hard-earned savings.”
