Facebook scammers are constantly seeking new ways to fool users, and deepfake videos are at the very cutting edge. But in addition to fraud, these fake doctored videos are increasingly being used to spread misinformation online. According to researchers in the UK, more than 100 deepfake videos of the British prime minister have been promoted on Facebook in the last month alone.

According to researchers, the deepfake ads reached as many as 400,000 people, and despite violating Facebook’s rules, the company has done next to nothing to remove them.

“With the advent of cheap, easy-to-use voice and face cloning, it takes very little knowledge and expertise to use a person’s likeness for malicious purposes,” researcher Marcus Beard told The Guardian. “Unfortunately, this problem is exacerbated by lax moderation policies on paid advertising. These adverts are against several of Facebook’s advertising policies. However, very few of the ads we encountered appear to have been removed.”

Facebook has the tools in place to detect and remove deepfake videos, but the company doesn’t seem able to keep up with the sheer scale of the problem. Hopefully Facebook listens to these reports and cracks down on this set of fakes, but it doesn’t bode well for upcoming elections all around the world.

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