As artificial intelligence continues to play an increasingly larger role in our daily lives, it also brings its own problems. This week, hundreds of deepfake videos, all featuring faces that look like Emma Watson and Scarlett Johansson, were posted on Facebook and Instagram as part of an ad campaign for an AI deepfake app called FaceMega.
The news, first announced by NBC News, reported that more than 200 videos were posted on Facebook and Instagram. In all of the commercials featuring Watson on 127 and Johansson on 74, the actresses appeared in “provocative” situations and in ways that featured obscene themes.
Apparently, the campaign was a FaceMega ad and allows users to replace someone’s face in a video with photos uploaded to the app for $8 a week. FaceMega appears to have been removed from the Apple App Store for a while, but was still available on the Google Play Store at the time of writing.
Lauren Barton, who uploaded a screencast of one of the videos to Twitter, stated in a conversation with NBC News that the application could be used on teenagers such as bullied students and could make the situation much worse: “It could ruin someone’s life. They may have problems at work. And it’s extremely easy and free to do. All I had to do was upload a picture of my face and I had access to 50 free templates.”
i got this ad yesterday and wow what the hell pic.twitter.com/smGiR3MfMb
— lauren (@laurenbarton03) March 6, 2023
Even though the app’s own Terms and Conditions say users are not allowed to “behave deceptively or impersonate any person or entity,” the ads appear to be contrary to these terms.
NBC News says the campaign comes from app developer Ufoto Limited, which is owned by its Chinese parent company Wondershare.
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