Filipinos shared an online post claiming that Meta, the American multinational company operating Facebook (FB), launched a new ad campaign optimization tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI) called MetaAI. This is fake.
The Aug. 24 post by FB page Meta.Ai carries a link to a website where users are baited into downloading and installing a Windows program infected with a computer virus called Trojan.
VERA Files has reached out to Meta but the company has yet to issue a statement about this.
This bogus post used the name of Meta AI, an academic research laboratory under Meta which has produced AI-based projects such as videos generated from text and speech recognition.
Meta offers application programming interfaces (APIs) as well as a set of AI-based tools called Meta Advantage to help advertisers automate and optimize marketing campaigns.
Web hosting company Namecheap offers the .cfd web domain used by the fake site. Neither Meta (meta.com) nor Facebook (facebook.com) uses the .cfd web domain.
[WATCH: Anu-ano ang mga palatandaan ng isang mapanlinlang na website?]
An antivirus scan shows that the fake MetaAI program contains a Trojan virus which works silently in the background to send spam emails.
FB page Meta.Ai, an impostor of Meta AI, was created on Feb. 24, 2012 under the Indonesian name Cetak Online (Print Online). Meta.ai’s previous page names include Kelas Bisnis 4 (Business Class 4) and Komunitas Bisnis UNJ (UNJ Business Community), FB’s Page Transparency shows.
[WATCH: Mga red flags ng mga mapanlinlang na social media account o page]
The fake FB post garnered 937 reactions, 69 comments, and 46 shares. It appeared six days after Meta featured a clothing company’s marketing strategy that used AI-based tools.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
