Artificial intelligence (AI) has proven effective in tackling fake celebrity advertisements, with the number falling to fewer than 1,000 per week from the more than 30,000 in May last year, the Ministry of Digital Affairs told a news conference after a weekly Cabinet meeting.
The ministry’s fraud-busting app, where people can report Internet scams, has been downloaded more than 17,000 times since September last year and has received more than 22,000 reports of fraud, it said.
About 120,000 ads were found to be scams, the ministry said, adding that it also asked Meta, Google, Line and TikTok to take those down.
Photo: CNA
Tips that the app received mainly came from Internet users, particularly public figures that had been impersonated for fraudulent purposes, it said.
The ministry said it also uses AI to scan online content to identify fraud.
People who were impersonated included city and county chiefs, legislators, Internet celebrities and famous businesspeople, with more than 500 of them reporting fraud through the app, it said.
Most of the celebrities who were impersonated were working in the finance industry, it added.
Through AI scanning, the number of fake celebrity ads decreased to fewer than 1,000 per week from more than 30,000 per week in May last year, the ministry said.
Administration for Digital Industries Deputy Director-General Huang Ya-ping (黃雅萍) said that while the number of scam advertisements impersonating celebrities has decreased, fraudulent tactics continue to evolve.
Therefore, AI systems would continue to be trained for proactive scanning using various keywords, she said.
Data collected from the app also showed that most of the tips came from 28 people, with each reporting more than 1,000 scams, the ministry said, adding that one of them gave 4,000 valid tips.
Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said that the Criminal Investigation Bureau had taken down more than 63,000 advertisements from January to last month.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS