Meta will use facial recognition technology to fight the rise of deepfake celebrity ads and help social media users recover their accounts.
In a blog post published on Monday, Meta announced that it would begin trialing the use of facial recognition technology with a select pool of 50,000 celebrities or public figures worldwide on an opt-out basis in December.
Meta is testing the use of the technology to detect and prevent deepfake celebrity scams on its platforms.
“Scammers often try to use images of public figures, such as content creators or celebrities, to bait people into engaging with ads that lead to scam websites where they are asked to share personal information or send money. This scheme, commonly called ‘celeb-bait,’ violates our policies and is bad for people that use our products,” Monika Bickert, Meta’s VP of content policy, writes in the blog post.
“Of course, celebrities are featured in many legitimate ads. But because celeb-bait ads are often designed to look real, they’re not always easy to detect.”
Meta’s facial technology will crack down on “celeb-bait ads” by comparing images from ads flagged as being dubious with celebrities’ Facebook or Instagram profile photos.
If Meta’s current systems detect that an ad might be a scam, they will use facial recognition technology to compare faces in the ad to the public figure’s Facebook and Instagram profile pictures. If a match is found and the ad is confirmed to be a scam, it will be removed.
“Early testing with a small group of celebrities and public figures shows promising results in increasing the speed and efficacy with which we can detect and enforce against this type of scam,” Bickert explains.
“In the coming weeks, we’ll start showing in-app notifications to a larger group of public figures who’ve been impacted by celeb-bait letting them know we’re enrolling them in this protection.”
Meta is also testing this technology as a means for people to verify their identity and regain access to compromised Facebook or Instagram accounts.
If a user loses access to their Facebook or Instagram accounts, they will be required to upload a video selfie and Meta will then use facial recognition technology to compare the selfie to the profile pictures on the account that they are trying to access.
“Video selfie verification expands on the options for people to regain account access, only takes a minute to complete, and is the easiest way for people to verify their identity,” Bickert writes.
In the last year, celebrities such as Tom Hanks and YouTuber MrBeast have been forced to warn fans about their AI-generated deepfake scams featuring their likenesses.
Image credits: All photos by Meta.