Facebook's political ad space is increasingly a playground for deepfake scams and deceptive content, with some of the platform's top advertisers fabricating videos of United States politicians promising nonexistent government payouts.
This summer, altered videos of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed Americans could claim $5,000 relief checks, redirecting users to a site called Get Covered Today. Similar fake videos depicted Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders making identical promises. "This is not a gimmick," Warren's impersonation stated, though in reality, it was.
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According to a new analysis by the Tech Transparency Project (via The New York Times), 63 advertisers using such deceptive tactics accounted for roughly one in five of Facebook's top 300 political ad spenders.
Together, they ran nearly 150,000 ads, spending almost $49 million over the last seven years. While many of these accounts have been suspended, more than half continued posting new ads as recently as this week.
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"The only thing worse than these deepfake AI videos being used to scam Americans is the fact that Meta makes tens of millions of dollars off those scam ads," Senator Warren said, calling for stricter consumer protections online.
Meta, which owns Facebook, prohibits ads that impersonate officials or employ deceptive practices, claiming to enforce these rules "vigorously" and promising investment in technical defenses. Yet critics say the company's enforcement is slow, largely automated, and reactive, relying on users or researchers to flag scams.
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The rise of AI tools has made creating deceptive ads easier, and social media platforms are now the primary vector for online fraud, surpassing phone or text scams. Federal regulators and governments, including Singapore, are pressuring Meta to crack down, threatening fines if the platform does not act.
As ad revenue for Meta approaches $160 billion annually, the Tech Transparency Project's analysis suggests that short-term profit often takes precedence over platform integrity and user safety.
"The pendulum has swung toward more short-term revenue considerations versus the long-term health of the platform," said Rob Leathern, former Meta employee and online trust expert. "Perhaps at some point it has to swing the other way."