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This article is the latest part of the FT’s Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign
Martin Lewis has called for Big Tech companies to be threatened with fines worth “tens of billions of pounds” to end the menace of AI-generated deepfake adverts on social media platforms, stressing the damage to British victims’ mental health as well as their finances.
Speaking at the FT Weekend Festival on Saturday, the consumer champion said it was not unusual for “300 to 400” scams a day featuring his image to appear across different social media platforms, including deepfake videos in which the Money Saving Expert founder appeared to be promoting fraudulent investment schemes.
“There are scam ads of me in computer games that children play, they’re all over the place,” he said. “I have people on my team who can spend half their week dealing with scam ads with me in [and getting them taken down].” He questioned why he had to fund this, and not the online tech groups.
Lewis said he had attended meetings with Big Tech companies who had told him they were investing in better software to spot and remove scam ads, but were resistant to his calls to employ more people to do so.
“Does Big Tech want scams on their platforms? No. I don’t believe they do. But this is a financial decision, not a technological decision,” he said to a round of applause from the audience in the FT Money tent at Kenwood House in north London.
“The reason they don’t crack down on scams is because it would slow down the advertising process and decrease their revenue. When we do put regulations in place . . . we need to be fining them tens of billions of pounds for bastardising our economy and hurting vulnerable people when they allow [scam ads], so much so that it is worthwhile financially for them to change their advertising practices to avoid the fines.”
Lewis waged a successful campaign to have scam ads included in the scope of the UK’s online safety bill in 2023, but a consultation on tackling scam ads will not take place until next year, leading him to fear consumers will not be protected by any additional legislation “until 2027” at the earliest, assuming UK regulators are “brave enough to enforce it”.
He expressed his deep frustration that for now, consumers remain unprotected. “When you’re scammed, especially for older people; you’re in retirement and your money’s gone . . . you hate yourself forever that you fell for it.”
Six years ago, Lewis personally sued Facebook for defamation over the issue of scam adverts fraudulently featuring his image, donating his £3mn out-of-court settlement to Citizens Advice to help victims of fraud.
Meta, the owner of Facebook, was approached for comment.
Nearly 80 per cent of scams originate online, according to research by banking trade body UK Finance, with social media platforms accounting for around three-quarters of this total.
Advances in generative AI technology have led to a surge of investment scams with deepfake videos featuring the images of celebrities ranging from Elon Musk, Lewis, stars of the British TV series Dragons’ Den and the FT’s senior economics commentator Martin Wolf.
Last week, on ITV’s This Morning programme, Lewis was visibly upset when he met Gill Casey, the widow of 85-year-old Tim Casey who lost £120,000 to a deepfake scam that used his image to promote a fraudulent crypto investment scheme.
On another occasion, he said he had been approached by a member of the public who had fallen victim to a similar deepfake investment scam featuring Lewis’s image, but who refused to believe it was not real. “It took me over 20 minutes to persuade him it was a scam,” he said. “It’s funny, and it’s tragic, and it’s happening everywhere.
“I almost think the word ‘scam’ inures us to it . . . this is sophisticated organised crime. [Big Tech] needs to deny these criminals the oxygen of publicity.”