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.
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