Showing posts with label brandjacking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brandjacking. Show all posts
Wednesday, 5 February 2025
Celebrities cannot stop their brandjacking, since many authorities are unable to help!
Written for cyber- and digital crime researchers and reporters. Plus, brandjacked celebrities and their representatives.
In discussion with reporters and PR experts, most seemed to be under the mistaken impression that celebrities enjoy a viable route to stop their brandjacking in scam adverts on social media platforms. I wrote this post to explain that although SA public figures seem well-resourced and influential, none have a viable route to prosecuting their brandjackers due to an absence of support from many authorities:
Since 2019, The Noakes Foundation has supported research into the brandjacking of influential celebrities' reputations on social media, and other poorly moderated platforms. The Fake Celebrity Endorsement (FCE) research team is documenting how this digital crime is an inscrutable, traumatic experience for celebrities, their representatives, and the financial victims who report being conned by fake endorsements. In addition to being traumatised by being featured in fake adverts, microcelebrities are further traumatised by the many reports from fans of their upset at being conned. A few celebrities have become targets for recurring cybervictimisation with no recourse, resulting in repeat trauma.
The FCE distinguishes 'digital crimes' from 'cybercrimes': Micro-fraudsters typically target private individuals with limited access to resources for combating digital crime. This contrasts to cybercrimes in which corporations are attacked (Olson, 2024). They are often well positioned to support their employees with costly resources that private individuals cannot afford. Research into the latter is well-resourced, as is interventions to stop it. By contrast, the fighting of digital crimes that impact private citizens are poorly resourced, particularly in the Global South. In the case of fake celebrity endorsements, press reports of this scam suggest that the problem grows each year- eleven South African celebrities fell victim to it in 2024, up from two in the first reports of 2014.
Fake celebrity endorsement is a digital crime that may require many authorities in society to combat it. Below is a list of the roleplayers that might potentially help prevent digital crimes:
1) celebrity influencers,
2) financial victims,
3) social media advertising providers,
4) Poorly-moderated content hosts,
5) banks,
6) cyber defence companies,
7) cybercrime reporters and statistics gatherers (industry researchers),
8) cybercrime educators,
9) anti-crime activists (PBOs and NGOs),
10) social media platforms (eg Big Tech),
11) financial investors,
12) government politicians,
13) the police,
14) international law enforcement,
15) local law,
16) Higher Education and its funders,
17) Product regulators.
While digital crime victims might expect support from these thirteen other role-players, this post spotlights their limitations. Some simply are unable to prioritise fighting fake celebrity endorsements, while others' interests may not be served in tackling this crime!
Figure 1 - the brandjacking digital crime process
Figure 1 shows a simplified process of the fake endorsement phishing scam. The authors of this digital crime are unknown- they can range from gangs, to the invisible threat of AI and bot armies, to even military intelligence agencies raising funds. Not only do these cybercriminals exploit scamming ecosystems inside popular social media platforms, they also exploit related ecosystems on platforms such as Huione Guarantee (now "Haowang Guarantee"), a Cambodian conglomerate. It offers a messaging app, stable coin, and crypto exchange, and has facilitated $2 billion in transactions. Such platforms are integral to the industrialisation and scaling-up of online scams, for example through supporting the outsourcing of scammers' money-laundering activities (The Economist, 2025).
1) Celebrity influencers
On digital media, celebrity influencers are 'micro-celebrities', who can also be 'influencers' (if paid to share content). Micro-celebrities may not be aware of the dangers of hyper-visibility, since there are no 'Here Be Dragons' signs at the on-ramps to creating their digital profiles. Here, celebrities agree to legal contracts that are heavily one-sided in favour of social media platforms versus users (Sarafian, 2023). These contracts do not place an onus on social networks to warn or protect their users from digital visibility risks; such as brandjacking and impersonation. The FCE project has approached almost 50 South African celebrities via their agents to participate in its research. Each's reputation was reported to have been stolen for scam adverts. Despite offering incentives, only three (plus select representatives) agreed to participate. Most may want to put their negative experiences behind them, while fearing reputational risks from being involved in a research process they are unfamiliar with, and whose outputs may be misperceived as potentially damaging. So, a big challenge exists in persuading micro-celebrities to contribute their experiences to research, so that they can be shared to inform digital crime fighters' responses.
2) Financial victims
Fans who have developed a parasocial relationship with a particular celebrity they follow, may genuinely believe that the fake endorsement adverts are a legitimate offer. Notwithstanding, the product’s promise seeming to be too good to be true. Having been conned, its victims may be ashamed, or in denial. Many may consider their financial loss not worth reporting (as a micro-fraud versus a serious crime). Even if victims are willing to report the digital crime, it may not be obvious which authority the crime is best reported to.3) Social media advertising services
Online advertisers, and digital platforms, may not understand or monitor the threat of digital crimes, such as celebrity brandjacking. It is not well-defined and may also be challenging to report on, since it spans several crimes itself: 1) impersonation; 2) non-consensual image sharing; and 3) the infringement of a public figure's intellectual property (through copyright violation of still images and audio-video). In addition, the crime causes; 4) reputational damage by suggesting a public figure’s association with a scam that often involves 5) financial fraud and hacking. Social media advertising complaint reporting formats only permit the reporting of one type of infringement at a time. This potentially leaves a blindspot, as users cannot report all the aspects that characterise the celebrity brandjacking crime. If it is a widespread problem, social media advertisers may also prefer not to flag it as a concern, thereby protecting their public reputations. Albeit, at the expense of celebrity and other financial victims.
4) Poorly-moderated content hosts
To make their offers seem more credible, scammers also post fake content on poorly-moderated sites (such as "clickbait news", "positive reviews" on online forums, and "scientific papers" on academic social networks). Even if such fake content is reported and removed, it can be quickly shifted by scammers to worse-moderated hosts...
5) Banks
As the financial victims legitimately authorise payments off their own accounts, victims do no enjoy recourse via their banks. To avoid new transactions from scammers, these victims often have to pay banks for new cards after terminating their old ones. It is unclear what role banks could adopt in combating digital crimes, wherein clients are defrauded whilst following a seemingly legitimate payment process.
Figure 2 - Authorities who could contribute to fighting digital crimes
6) Cyber defence companies
Cyber defence businesses are focused on providing profitable services to corporates. Such services are often unaffordable to even the wealthiest celebrities in SA. However, some may be fortunate to work for companies that use cyber defence services that pro-actively monitor cyberspace, and warn employees against digital impersonation and related risks. Such services include Darkivore, Flashpoint, Netcraft (FraudWatch International), SGS and ZeroFox. It does not seem that cyber defence companies can produce a profitable service that supports rapid responses to fake endorsements and related crimes. Even if it such a service was not unaffordable, most SA celebrities have not been targeted for revictimization. So it seems unlikely they would subscribe to such a service annually.
7) Cybercrime reporters and statistics gatherers
While there have been many reports for weight-loss and money-making cryptocurrency scams featuring particular celebrities, the media, celebrities agents and PR companies seem to report on these brandjackings as once-off events. Reports typically cover the latest flare-up to negatively impact one or two stars, plus their fans. At the same time, cybercrime statistics do not include this digital crime, whose costs to victims in SA are unknown, and difficult to aggregate. This points to a need for developing an holistic view of digital crime from consolidated reports. Research into digital crimes that can bridge the work of journalists and crime statisticians seems urgently needed to describe such crime's extant, frequency and costs to society. Developing robust reporting mechanisms for digital crimes (particularly ones that are challenging like 'fake social media adverts for phishing' {as they include several sub-crimes}) would seem an important contribution that law enforcement, researchers and statisticians can make. Reporters and researchers can also develop robust definitions of emergent digital crimes to grow awareness of them. This should aid more accurate reports.
8) Cybercrime researchers, and educators, in companies
In a similar collaborative vein, cybercrime researchers and educators in companies are working together to help combat digital crimes targeting their employees and clients. In particular, banks and insurance companies in SA are pro-actively raising awareness around phishing and other common digital crimes. This is done in communications that range from email newsletters, to pop-up warnings that clients must acknowledge reading post log-in.
9) Anti-crime activists (PBOs and NGOs)
Anti-digital crime education tends to focus on educating high school students and working professionals with preventative knowledge in English. However, our research into fake celebrity endorsement victims' online commentary suggest that most are over fifty five, with English being their second language, at best. In response, The Noakes Foundation has supported the development of modules in English for educating silver surfers on the most common digital crimes. Ideally, though, these modules (and reportfakeendorsement.com's content) should be available in South Africa's 11 official languages.
10) Social media platforms and their Big Tech owners
Social media companies, and their Big Tech owners, would seem to have a particular responsibility for protecting users from digital crime threats on their platforms. In contrast, there is a decade-long history in SA of even influential celebrities not being well-supported via speedy responses to their brandjacking, and scam adverts are seldom taken down based on celebrities', their representatives' and other victims' reports.
The most popular platform for this scam in SA is Meta's Facebook and Instagram. Meta does not understand the content that its users share (Horwitz, 2023). Further, it does not report on scam ecosystems based inside its own platforms. Consequently, neither Facebook nor Instagram can pro-actively identify digital crimes, let alone quickly adapt their systems to stop emergent threats from micro-fraudsters. It's left up to whistleblowers, former employees, investigative journalists and researchers to create awareness on these platforms' serious flaws, such as it being used as a scammers' ecosystem tied to scam-as-service ones. This would seems at odds with corporate responsibility- Meta should publicly report regarding its progress in tackling scam-ecosystems on its FB, WhatsApp and Instagram platforms. It could also pro-actively warn vulnerable users, such as the aged, against the latest scam risks.
In a sense, digital crimes by cybercriminals on social networks can be considered a parasitic attack within a larger parasitic host: Meta’s Facebook and Instagram are infomediaries that misrepresent themselves as symbionts in supporting users’ communal connections online. In reality, Meta’s business model is parasitic in relying on 3 000 000 000 users to share content (Robbins, 2018). Much of this content is not the work of original/creative producers, but rather sampled from content that's proved popular on other platforms. In essence, social media platforms are middlemen between content creators and their audiences, taking most of the profits from advertising. These platforms also take the intellectual property of online content creators. In the Global South this serves as a form of neocolonial data extraction as Big Tech multinationals from the Global North extract its data, with little being reciprocated. For example, while powerful celebrities in the US can enjoy access to dedicated Facebook support, there is no equivalent offering for influential SA users. Instead, they are lucky to stumble onto internal staff or Trusted Partners who can best help them respond to the Facebookjacking or Instajacking crimes.
In contrast to the usefulness of human insiders, reports to Meta's AI that manages users' reports of dubious accounts and content is simply not capable of recognising malicious advertisers' accounts; At face value, there is in nothing “wrong” with how the scammers’ accounts are set up - They have have a human profile (fake name) managing a business profile (fake name and business). Reporting the scam accounts is useless, since the fraudsters fill-in all the right criteria to fly under the radar! The scammers use 'Like Farms' and a network of fake profiles to all create a sense of legitimacy through 'liking, sharing and commenting' on posts and ads. The criminals also use a “legitimate website” - this is a bought domain and hosing and (questionable design) - selling a “product” and accumulating data of visitors' info and credit card details. All this seems to be legitimate business behaviour to AI, but is malicious and AI cannot detect that. Scammers use a (stolen) credit card, or hijacked meta Ads manager profile and run advertIf this content had truly been verified by a human it would have been taken down immediately. Even to the most untrained eye it was obvious that this content was a deep fake.s through their “business page”. This works for a short while until the card or the account are stopped, and then they just create another one. These ADs are selling a product online, the product is seemly harmless and well within the legal parameters of Meta's Community standards. The fact that its a fake product is immaterial to Meta, the onus in on the customer to know when they are being scammed, and if users try to report this to be a harmful product, it doesn’t work” as that is deemed a matter of personal opinion! Where such content is checked by a human moderators, the content is so obviously fake that they taken it down quickly.
It appears that Meta's Facebook and Instagram are turning a blind eye to this digital advertising crime. The benefit to META is clear with them reaping the rewards through advertisers' spending: Trustfull's 2024 report expects Deep Fake Fraud to reach $ 15.7 billion in 2024. Meta is set to take a large chunk of that ad-spend revenue in distributing fake, malicious content. It’s hard not to draw to the conclusion that it seems irrelevant to META if the content is genuine or a scam, or if the account used to promote these scams has been hacked or cloned. Either way, META and Facebook still profits.
8) Cybercrime researchers, and educators, in companies
9) Anti-crime activists (PBOs and NGOs)
10) Social media platforms and their Big Tech owners
It appears that Meta's Facebook and Instagram are turning a blind eye to this digital advertising crime. The benefit to META is clear with them reaping the rewards through advertisers' spending: Trustfull's 2024 report expects Deep Fake Fraud to reach $ 15.7 billion in 2024. Meta is set to take a large chunk of that ad-spend revenue in distributing fake, malicious content. It’s hard not to draw to the conclusion that it seems irrelevant to META if the content is genuine or a scam, or if the account used to promote these scams has been hacked or cloned. Either way, META and Facebook still profits.
11) Financial investors
Investors are focused on the bottom-line of financial profit. To achieve it, social media platforms' developers spotlight the metrics of an ever-increasing flow of communication marking their platforms' commercial expansion. Given this all-consuming quantitative focus, it's unsurprising that these platforms' developers and investors are largely disinterested in paying the costs to understand the negative experiences on platforms. Particularly when combating these might impede their growth and monetisation!
12) Government politicians
SA's parasitic political class has been slow to take action for protecting its citizenry from the excesses of social media platforms, and digital crimes on them. For example, it has not protected the intellectual rights of original digital content producers by passing a Creators Bill of Rights to limit their online exploitation. On social media, SA creatives do not retain copyright, have rights of termination and appeal, etc. Globally, most online content creators struggle to make a living from the work that they do. Social media companies' oligarchic power and their poor regulation by the law contributes to this. Further, policy inactivity may suggest that government decision makers' are guided by Big Tech's funding and political support, more-so than its digital creatives' rights and needs.
13) Local police
Brandjacking is not viewed as a serious crime by SA authorities who might be expected to intervene as guardians. Cybercrime experts in the SA police have to focus their limited resources on fighting severe digital crimes (like the online trafficking of children, drugs, and guns). They simply cannot address digital crimes that have not been shown to have serious impacts on their victims, such as phishing micro-frauds.
14) International law enforcement
In contrast to under-resourced local law enforcement authorities, global ones (such as Interpol) are better resourced to potentially offer some form of response to digital crimes on social media. However, until decent stats and reports for digital micro-frauds are documented and shared with global authorities, these digital crimes are not notifiable, so cannot be directly investigated at an international level.
15) Local law
Even if a foreign criminal network behind a scam is found though investigation, and the legal frameworks exist for their extradition, the costs for local law enforcement to prosecute scammers may well prove prohibitive to the State. The global proceeds of online fraud are probably more than $500bn a year, so another major concern is that online fraudsters have become rich and powerful enough to corrupt entire governments (Scam Inc podcasts, 2025). Scam "businesses" can turn countries into the cyber-scam equivalent of narco-states, and their operations can be found all over the world. Broadly, 1.5 million scammers are at work, from Namibia up to the Isle of Man, and from Mexico across to Fiji (The Economist, 2025). Where scam bosses have strong clout within a political system, it becomes impossible to enact policies that undermine their fraud. Corrupted states, such as Cambodia, would seem unlikely to extradite criminals who pose a reputational risk in potentially implicating senior state officials. Extradition from lawless places, such as Myanmar, is also impossible.
16) Higher Education and research funders
Like banks, universities are stepping up their preventative digital crime awareness communications, and attracting research funding to build scholarship into cyber- and digital crimes. More generally, universities can lead discourse on the digital crimes issue, catalysing inter- and trans-disciplinary collaborations. Funders of university grants might support design thinking, or strategic design activities to develop solutions for the seemingly intractable brandjacking micro-fraud. Likewise, ethical research into the issues that emerge in researching digital crimes under fake personas. Given that the brandjacking of influential scholars would seem to also pose reputational risks to their university-as-employer, related research could be motivated as a neglected, but potentially valuable contribution.
17) Product regulators
Fake celebrity endorsements typically promote dubious products, that may actually be delivered. As such, customers may assume that they are protected by local regulators for those particular product types. For example, British doctors have been brandjacked to market "wonder drugs" that cure blood pressure. "Their" customers might assume that they are protected by the UK's General Medical Council. However, this falls outside the GMCs remit, which can only address with promotions from genuine doctors on its register. The GMC cannot tackle 'computer generated videos' by unknown fraudsters (Stokel-Walker, 2014). It seems unlikely that any product regulator can help with tackling fake products marketed by unregistered and anonymous cybercriminals.
Celebrity, you are on your own in responding to digital crime?!
It should be clear that celebrities are unlikely to be supported in stopping fake social media adverts. While five key authorities are working to raise awareness against digital crimes (5, 7, 8, 9 & 16), there is little-to-no help available from eight (3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 14, 15 & 17). At the digital crime's fountainhead (10 & 11), social media platforms are actually disincentivised against tackling the problem. In the absence of support from criminal prosecutors, the law or cybercrime fighting businesses, it should be clear that the guardianship role of social media companies is non-negotiable. Social media platforms that are heavily used by scammers, could take responsibility for this by entrusting micro teams of moderators around the world to review adverts. Verification by well-trained human resources who can disable fraudulent accounts seems to be the best answer to stopping brandjacking on social media. The current AI approach is failing miserably, with counter-technologies many steps behind cybercriminals' "innovations".
There is not enough being done at an entry level to assist smaller companies and the general public who are constantly being attacked by digital crimes. The accounts of celebrities, plus their representatives, whom we've interviewed suggest that pressure must urgently be placed on social media platforms to provide effective brandjacking reporting, and prevention, tools. Without these, deep fake adverts can spread quickly- reaching tens-of-thousands of people a day. At the same time, celebrities must focus on building rapid awareness in the media, plus at the site of the digital crimes, to alert potential victims.
Just as celebrity co-operation is important, so is that by civil society organisations who can collaborate for pressuring authorities to act in a more responsible and pro-active manner in tackling digital crime. For example, Anna Collard (SVP Content Strategy and Evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa) is doing important work in building networks that can collaborate in educating the public around the dangers of cyber- and digital crimes. Likewise, international and local networks must motivate for sounder strategic interventions from key role players to thwart global networks.
Serious funding is also needed to support awareness programs for educating vulnerable groups. In particular, communities like the elderly are a very high risk, though being less tech- and media savvy. Public benefactors are also needed to assist educational initiatives, like ReportFakeEndorsement, with reaching a broad audience and for greatly increasing the research being done into new digital crimes, and how to thwart them.
Please comment with suggestions to improve this post
I am not an expert on all 13 authorities and their responses, so welcome any constructive corrections for improving what's been shared above. Please comment below, so that I can review your feedback, and perhaps update this blogpost, acknowledging you for your advice, below.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Dr Taryn van Niekerk for proposing the term ‘unchartered territory’ to describe celebrities’ (and their reps) challenges as novices responding to a brandjacking. That insight helped inspire this post, which maps authorities in an 'unknown territory', and the support they might offer, or cannot. Also, The Noakes Foundation and the FCE team appreciate Mr Byron Davel's advice regarding the ZeroFox offering. Plus the broader field of brand protection, and cyber-defence against dark web operations. TNF also appreciates the journalist Lyse Comins' critique of Meta's slow action in her news article- Meta criticised for slow action as deepfake adverts target South African celebrities.
Thursday, 29 August 2024
After half-a-million views, "Dr Noakes" erection dysfunction "advert" taken down by Facebook + suggested actions for META to do better
I am pleased to report that The Noakes Foundation has succeeded in getting a fake 'Dr Noakes' advert for erectile dysfunction pills removed from META. This is after a month of trying varied methods without success to stop the brandjacking of Professor Tim Noakes' identity, and his impersonation via deepfake reels and accounts on Facebook.
On Thursday the 25th of July we were first alerted to a deep fake advert featuring Emeritus Professor Tim Noakes that ran on META's Facebook, and Tik Tok. As Figure 1 shows, the Facebook advert had been viewed over 584,000 times, liked by 637 accounts, and received 56 comments. While much of the likes and comments may be from bots, such high viewership of the reel itself is highly concerning. It suggests how rapidly a cybercriminals' adverts spread to potential victims- at over 16,000 views per day!
This account was reported to Facebook via a third-party. During this “warning period”, the account's owners launched four new "Dr Tim Noakes" campaigns. Each was documented and reported to Facebook. Interestingly, the links to the online store “sites” were dead ends. However, a 'Call Now' button could still support a call agent's phishing of victims financial details.
The scammers flick-flacked between varied accounts in committing this cybercrime- they initially used "Hughles" (Figures 6 and 7), "Cameron Sullivan Setting", and "Murthyrius" in launching the same deepfake ads. By the 28th of July, 13 of these "adverts were taken down by Facebook, but the scammers shifted to new accounts, "Longjiaren.com" (Figure 8) and "Brentlinger" (renamed "Brentlingerkk" after we reported it). On the 29th of August, these accounts and their adverts were disabled by Facebook.
Such adverts typically reach viewers outside The Noakes Foundation, Nutrition Network and Eat Better South Africa’s networks. Their audiences know Professor Noakes does not endorse miracle weight loss and other cures. To reach vulnerable publics, The Noakes Foundation has run Facebook alerts to warn about this latest cybercrime. Ironically, the most recent advert attempting to flag the "Dr Noakes" scam was blocked by Facebook advertising (Figure 9)!
Brandjacking is the ‘allegedly illegal use of trademarked brand names - on social network sites’ (Ramsey, 2010 p851). Cybercriminals misuse the trademarks of others without authorization. For example, ‘Facebookjacking’ and ‘Instajacking’ see public figures’ usernames, account names, and/or digital content being used for fake accounts and video "adverts" on Meta’s respective popular social networks- Facebook and Instagram. Such brandjacking via fake celebrity endorsement spans several types of crime: (1) Impersonation, (2) Non-consensual image sharing, and (3) the Infringement of a public figure's intellectual property through copyright violation of still images and audio-video. In addition to causing (4) Reputation damage to the public figure through suggesting association with a scam, cybercriminals may use it for (5) Financial fraud and hacking. Given that these are serious crimes, it is worrying that public figures in South Africa seem to receive minimal, if any, support from social media companies for stopping the fake endorsement digital crime. There is also a gap in scholarship for how public figures worldwide, and in SA, might best tackle this persistent crime.
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| Figure 1. Screenshot from the fake 'Dr Noakes' erection dysfunction advert on Facebook (2024) |
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| Figure 2. Screenshot of scammers' Facebook account featuring "Dr Tim Noakes" erection pill adverts (2024) |
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| Figure 3. Scammer account location behind fake Facebook Dr Tim Noakes adverts (2024) |
Our initial Facebook advert lookup revealed that one page was running four adverts (Figure 2). This account ("Tristan") was managed from Nepal and India (Figure 3).
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| Figure 4. Screenshot of fake Tristan account header behind Dr Tim Noakes adverts on Facebook (2024) |
This fake account page also leveraged fake interactions to suggest that it was liked, and followed (Figures 4 and 5).
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| Figure 5. Screenshot of fake "Tristan" Facebook account details behind Dr Tim Noakes adverts (2024) |
The absence of a link for data gathering suggested that this scam was primarily not for phishing such sensitive data, or selling fake products. Rather the advert's design seems geared for stealing advertising revenue via deepfake creation. The scammers hack into the "advertiser"'s Meta account to distribute fake adverts that run up tens-of-thousands of dollars in spend. In this case it was a government-based account from an unknown location. Such adverts may also carry malware, with users clicking on them being vulnerable to hacking. These paid ads also have the impact of pushing potential followers to the advertiser’s page. More followers results in more people seeing the content, and Meta indirectly benefiting from the cybercrime's increased visibility by achieving higher advertising rates.
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| Figure 6. Screenshot of scammers' "Hughles" Facebook account (2024) |
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| Figure 7. Screenshot of scammers' "Hughles" Facebook account's Dr Tim Noakes adverts (2024) |
The scammers flick-flacked between varied accounts in committing this cybercrime- they initially used "Hughles" (Figures 6 and 7), "Cameron Sullivan Setting", and "Murthyrius" in launching the same deepfake ads. By the 28th of July, 13 of these "adverts were taken down by Facebook, but the scammers shifted to new accounts, "Longjiaren.com" (Figure 8) and "Brentlinger" (renamed "Brentlingerkk" after we reported it). On the 29th of August, these accounts and their adverts were disabled by Facebook.
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| Figure 8. Screenshot of Longjiaren.com scammers Facebook account for fake adverts (2024) |
Such adverts typically reach viewers outside The Noakes Foundation, Nutrition Network and Eat Better South Africa’s networks. Their audiences know Professor Noakes does not endorse miracle weight loss and other cures. To reach vulnerable publics, The Noakes Foundation has run Facebook alerts to warn about this latest cybercrime. Ironically, the most recent advert attempting to flag the "Dr Noakes" scam was blocked by Facebook advertising (Figure 9)!
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| Figure 9. Facebook rejects anti scam ad from The Noakes Foundation (2024) |
Actions for META to do better in fighting cybercrime on its platforms
As Anna Collard (KnowBe4) spotlights in her recent interview with eNews, social media platforms are a vital source for news in Africa. Consequently, these platforms must be held more accountable for any slow responses to synthetic- and deep-fakes. It is greatly concerning that META's Facebook platform is so rife with many serious crimes (ranging from sextortion and child-trafficking to drug pushing).
META can be more pro-active in tackling such cybercrimes {plus less serious ones like fake celebrity endorsement}, by prioritising these seven steps below:
1) Actively communicate that all users' must have a 'zero trust' mindset;
2) Create a compliance team that is dedicated to thwarting cybercriminals' activities;
3) Offer at least one human contact on each META platform for serious reports of criminal misuse;
4) Promote frequent reporters of cybercrime by referring them to META's Trusted Partners or Business Partners for rapid aid;
5) Encourage external research on every platform regarding cybercriminals' activities (such initiatives could develop inexpensive tools. For example, for celebrities' reps to protect public figures from being deep faked in "adverts");
6) Provide more feedback on what was influential in reporting cybercrime for accounts and content to be removed. Without such feedback, fraud reporters may not be sure which reports are most effective;
7) Have a recommendation system in place for support networks that cybervictims can approach (such as referring South Africans to its national CyberSecurity hub).
2) Create a compliance team that is dedicated to thwarting cybercriminals' activities;
3) Offer at least one human contact on each META platform for serious reports of criminal misuse;
4) Promote frequent reporters of cybercrime by referring them to META's Trusted Partners or Business Partners for rapid aid;
5) Encourage external research on every platform regarding cybercriminals' activities (such initiatives could develop inexpensive tools. For example, for celebrities' reps to protect public figures from being deep faked in "adverts");
6) Provide more feedback on what was influential in reporting cybercrime for accounts and content to be removed. Without such feedback, fraud reporters may not be sure which reports are most effective;
7) Have a recommendation system in place for support networks that cybervictims can approach (such as referring South Africans to its national CyberSecurity hub).
In addition, META might consider these suggestions from The Noakes Foundation's Report Fake Endorsement initiative, to: (8) enhance deepfake detection technology, (9) apply stricter verification processes, (10) increase transparency and reporting tools, (11) support local educational initiatives, (12) promote collaborations with local cybercrime experts, (13) implement proactive monitoring systems to detect unusual patterns in ads, and (14) reinforced consequences for violations.
By sharing this "Dr Noakes" case study (and developing others), The Noakes Foundation hopes to raise awareness of the fake celebrity endorsement cybercrime, plus the importance of Big Tech guardians stepping up to fulfil their responsibilities. We are also liaising with sympathetic allies (KnowBe4® Africa Security Awareness, Orange Defence, Wolfpack Information Risk and others) to grow the networks necessary to better support cybercrime prevention in South Africa.
Much can be done for targeted digital literacy education for vulnerable targets of cybercrime (such as #StopTheScam for silver surfers). We will also continue advocating that capable guardians (such as META, Twitter and TikTok) become more pro-active in protecting vulnerable publics on their platforms. Their gatekeeping role is vital, as the traditional bulwarks against crime (education, the police and the law) seem unable to catch-up with the "evolution"of global cybercrimes!
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