Exclusive: How Facebook pages are misusing names of celebrities and media outlets in misleading ads

While browsing through Facebook, Alt News recently came across a post on a page named Levi Ponce containing a link to an interview featuring Aaj Tak journalist Shweta Singh. The post caught our attention due to the title, which read, “A confession that surprised everyone!”. It also contained a preview card to a BBC article in which Singh was quoted as saying that she was ashamed of what she had done.

The headline and preview card of this post were so sensational that it prompted us to click on it. Upon opening the link, we were redirected not to the BBC’s website but to a website named thirdlasagna.com which did not have any interviews. We found that the domain redirected to a crypto scam website. (Archived link)

Alt News started looking into the page, and in its Transparency section, we discovered it had been continuously running advertisements. When we opened the Ad Library report of the page, we noticed that this page had run numerous such ads on Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network and Messenger, all containing the same format. In these advertisements, a link is promoted using the image of a public figure or personality and names of international media outlets. This page has run several advertisements using Shweta Singh’s name and picture, screenshots of which are given below. Some of these advertisements have now been deleted, but we have stored their offline versions in a file above the sheets in this article, which readers can download and view.

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In the Ad Library of the same page, we found an advertisement featuring images of senior Indian journalist Karan Thapar and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. This ad, too, promoted a website (thirdlasagna.com) which redirected to a crypto scam domain. One such advertisement featured Karan Thapar’s image, but Shweta Singh was referenced in the text, wherein BBC quoted her as saying that she was ashamed of what she did. (Archived link)

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Upon further investigation, Alt News also came across a number of other Facebook pages running such advertisements on both Facebook and Instagram. Some of these are:

• Levi Ponce
• HopeNuggets
• Lazaris TheTopDon
• Loriana Lana
• Sam White
• Quickmart Kenya
• Dytrc
• Baatarbileg Yo
• Houston Christian University
• Amaury et Quentin

It is worth noting that these pages used the same format to promote bizarre links using the names of public personalities and international media outlets, including Indian journalists Karan Thapar and Shweta Singh. The ads also used the same sensationalist headlines and link previews, quoting journalists and several other celebrities, claiming that they were ashamed of their actions. The names of BBC.com and BBC.in were used in these advertisements. Some screenshots have been given below for readers to refer to.

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Ratan Tata and Kriti Sanon Victims of Fake Ads

The pages ran advertisements targeting Indian industrialist Ratan Tata and actress Kriti Sanon. A Facebook page named Dytrc shared an edited photo of Ratan Tata and ran an advertisement with it containing a false claim regarding a technical glitch which could change the income of Indians. The preview link mentions that officials tried to interrupt this interview, but it was too late as he had already spoken about it. The other featured a photo of actress Kriti Sanon. The ad read, “Koffee with Karan host Karan Johar called Kriti Sanon ‘irresponsible’ and said on air that ‘financial information of this magnitude can shake the foundation of Indian society.’”

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Names of International Media Outlets and Celebrities Misused

Apart from Indian journalists, industrialists, actresses and leaders, names of other celebrities and many international media outlets have been used in the advertisements by these Facebook pages, which include journalists, sports persons, politicians, and other public figures from a variety of countries including India. All the information about advertisements is given in the sheets below. Some of these advertisements have now been removed, so we have stored the offline versions of these advertisements. (All the files related to this sheet can be downloaded by clicking on this link.)

Page	Target/Person (Name/Image)	Profession	Country	Display link	Website URL
Levi Ponce	Karan Thapar	Journalist	India	BBC.COM	elegantsubmarine.com
Levi Ponce	Sweta Singh	Journalist	India	BBC.COM	thirdlasagna.com
Levi Ponce	Ella Kanninen	Journalist	Finland	HS.FI	regularberet.com
Levi Ponce	Rafał Brzozowski	Singer and TV Presenter	Poland	GAZETA.PL	carefuljail.com
Levi Ponce	Natalia Willy Druyts	Singer	Belgium	HLN.BE	neatjellyfish.com
Levi Ponce	Chris Kenny	Politician	Australia	tugboat.splendidroast.com	splendidroast.com
Levi Ponce	Sandrine Dans	TV Presenter	Belgium	RTBF.BE	loudbath.com
HopeNuggets	Karan Thapar	Journalist	India	BBC.IN	verdantcardboard.com
HopeNuggets	Australian Residents		Australia	9news.com.au	importantpot.com
HopeNuggets	Emma Willis	British Broadcaster	UK	BBC.CO.UK	succinctcactus.com
HopeNuggets	Karl Nehammr	Austrian Chancellor	Austria	OMV.COM	adamantpotato.com
HopeNuggets	Anthony Norman Albanese	Prime Minister	Australia	ABC.NET.AU	caringstraw.com
HopeNuggets	Edward Boyd	Business Reporter/Presenter	Austalia	ABC.NET.AU	stripeddictionary.com
HopeNuggets	Australian Union		Australia	ABC.NET.AU	stripeddictionary.com
HopeNuggets	Mike Henry	CEO of BHP	Australia	ABC.NET.AU	stripeddictionary.com
HopeNuggets	British Citizen		UK	BBC.CO.UK	remarkablecement.com
HopeNuggets	Martin Pibworth	MD of Scottish and southern energy	UK	BBC.CO.UK	remarkablecement.com
HopeNuggets	Anne Glad	Lifestyle Expert	Denmark	BT.DK	miniaturesack.com
HopeNuggets	Emma Willis	British Broadcaster	UK	malesoybean.com	malesoybean.com
HopeNuggets	Paz Padilla	Comedian	Spain	ELTIEMPO.ES	calmmechanic.com
HopeNuggets	Sam Kerr	Soccer Player	Australia	9NEWS.AU.COM	FARTRUNK.COM
Lazaris TheTopDon	Karan Thapar	Journalist	India	BBC.COM	elegantsubmarine.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Ella Kanninen	Journalist	Finland	HS.FI	regularberet.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Austalian Residents		Australia	ABC.NET.AU	assortedwax.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Austalian Residents		Australia	OE24.AT	thirdharmonica.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Karl Nehammr	Austrian Chancellor	Austria	OE24.AT	thirdharmonica.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Rafał Brzozowski	Singer and TV Presenter	Poland	GAZETA.PL	roundbooklet.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Sigrid Kaag	Deputy Prime Minster	Netherlands	AD.NL	succinctmonkey.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Mark Rutte	Prime Minister	Netherlands	AD.NL	succinctmonkey.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Jens Stoltenberg	Secretary General Of NATO	Norway	AD.NL	succinctmonkey.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Geert Wilders	Politician	Netherlands	AD.NL	succinctmonkey.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Francine Lacqua	Journalist	Italy	AD.NL	succinctmonkey.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Natalia Willy Druyts	Singer	Belgium	neatjellyfish.com	neatjellyfish.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Sandrine Dans	TV Presenter	Belgium	loudbath.com	loudbath.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Anne Glad	Lifestyle Expert	Denmark	TV2.DK	gulliblebangle.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Andor eva	TV Presenter	Hungary	BLIKK.HU	brainyframe.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Maria Veitola	Journalist	Finland	regularberet.com	regularberet.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Lucie Bila	Singer and Actress	Czech Republic	thinkablecoal.com	thinkablecoal.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Rafał Brzozowski	Singer and TV Presenter	Poland	roundbooklet.com	roundbooklet.com
Lazaris TheTopDon	Manuel Luís Goucha	Journalist	Portugal	keenstem.com	keenstem.com
Loriana Lana	Sandrine Dans	TV Presenter	Belgium	LEMONDE.FR	loudbath.com
Loriana Lana	Honza Dedek	Journalist	Czech Republic	NOVINKY.CZ	thinkablecoal.com
Loriana Lana	Sam Kerr	Soccer Player	Australia	NEWS.COM.AU	assortedwax.com
Loriana Lana	David Goffin	Tennis Player	Belgium	LEMONDE.FR	loudbath.com
Loriana Lana	Ella Kanninen	Journalist	Finland	HS.FI	mushycaptain.com
Loriana Lana	Natalia Willy Druyts	Singer	Belgium	HLN.BE	neatjellyfish.com
Loriana Lana	Maria Veitola	Journalist	Finland	HS.FI	regularberet.com
Loriana Lana	Lucie Bila	Singer and Actress	Czech Republic	IDNES.CZ	thinkablecoal.com
Loriana Lana	Austalian Residents		Australia	NEWS.AU.COM	assortedwax.com
Loriana Lana	Rafał Brzozowski	Singer and TV Presenter	Poland	GAZETA.PL	carefuljail.com
Loriana Lana	Sigrid Kaag	Deputy Prime Minster	Netherlands	AD.NL	succintmonkey.com
Loriana Lana	Jens Stoltenberg	Secretary General Of NATO	Norway	AD.NL	succinctmonkey.com
Loriana Lana	Geert Wilders	Politician	Netherlands	AD.NL	succinctmonkey.com
Loriana Lana	Karl Nehammr	Austrian Chancellor	Austria	OE24.AT	thirdharmonica.com
Loriana Lana	Australian Union		Australia	ABC.NET.AU	homelywrist.com
Loriana Lana	Giorgia Meloni	Prime Minister	Italy	RAINEWS.IT	educatedtornado.com
Loriana Lana	Manuel Luís Goucha	Journalist	Portugal	SAPO.PT	keenstem.com
Loriana Lana	Karan Thapar	Journalist	India	BBC.COM	octtrendi.com
Sam White	Mikko Kekalainen	Journalist	Finland	HS.FI	regularberet.com
Sam White	Lucie Bila	Singer and Actress	Czech Republic	IDNES.CZ	rarerice.com
Sam White	Maria Veitola	Journalist	Finland	HS.FI	mushycaptain.com
Sam White	Jens Stoltenberg	Secretary General Of NATO	Norway	AD.NL	succintmonkey.com
Sam White	Geert Wilders	Politician	Netherlands	AD.NL	succintmonkey.com
Sam White	Sigrid Kaag	Deputy Prime Minster	Netherlands	AD.NL	succintmonkey.com
Sam White	Karl Nehammr	Austrian Chancellor	Austria	OE24.AT	thirdharmonica.com
Sam White	Rafał Brzozowski	Singer and TV Presenter	Poland	GAZETA.PL	roundbooklet.com
Sam White	Anthony Norman Albanese	Prime Minister	Australia	homelywrist.com	homelywrist.com
Quickmart Kenya	Kriti Sanon	Actress	India	BBC.COM	najosdipco.com
Quickmart Kenya	Karan Johar	Film maker	India	BBC.COM	najosdipco.com
Dytrc	Ratan Tata	Industrialist	India	findhiddenwater.com	findhiddenwater.com
Baatarbileg Yo	Natalia Willy Druyts	Singer	Belgium	HLN.BE	kindlyfeet.com
Baatarbileg Yo	Tran Thanh	Actor	Vietnam	ENI.COM	educatedtornado.com
Baatarbileg Yo	Karan Thapar	Journalist	India	BBC.COM	octequiti.com
Houston Christian University	Paz Padilla	Comedian	Spain	ELTIEMPO.ES	calmmechanic.com
Houston Christian University	Australian Residents		Australia	9NEWS.COM.AU	ubiquitousshell.com
Houston Christian University	Karl Nehammr	Austrian Chancellor	Austria	OMV.COM	adamantpotato.com
Houston Christian University	Anthony Norman Albanese	Prime Minister	Australia	ABC.NET.AU	oceaniccourse.com
Houston Christian University	Anne Glad	Lifestyle Expert	Denmark	BT.DK	miniaturesack.com
Houston Christian University	Karan Thapar	Journalist	India	BBC.INDIA	curvymedicine.com
Amaury et Quentin	Australian Residents		Australia	9NEWS.COM.AU	ubiquitousswitch.com
Amaury et Quentin	Anne Glad	Lifestyle Expert	Denmark	BT.DK	miniaturesack.com
Amaury et Quentin	Karan Thapar	Journalist	India	BBC.IN	foregoingmask.com

The ad format used by these pages is exactly the same, with many of their ads using the same image, display link, and URL, indicating that these pages are connected to the same network. Some of the international media houses named in these advertisements are as follows:

• BBC – Public broadcaster, London
• Helsingin Sanomat (HS) – Newspaper, Finland
• Gazeta.pl – News portal, Poland
• Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN) – Dutch language newspaper, Belgium
• Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF) – public broadcaster, Belgium
• Nine News (9News) – national news service, Australia.
• Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) – National Broadcaster, Australia
• B.T. – Tabloid, Denmark
• Eltiempo.es – Weather news website, Spain
• Österreich (OE24) – Austrian daily newspaper, Vienna
• Algemeen Dagblad (AD) – Dutch daily Newspaper, Rotterdam
• TV 2 – Government-owned TV channel, Denmark
• Blikk – Newspaper, Hungary
• Le Monde – Newspaper, France
• Novinky.cz – News portal, Czech Republic
• news.com.au – News portal (News Corp Australia)
• iDNES.cz – News portal, Czech Republic
• Rai News 24 – Free-to-air TV channel, Italy
• Sapo – News portal, Portugal

Edited Images Used in Ads

Alt News performed a reverse image search of some of the photographs used in these advertisements, and we noticed that the faces of many journalists and internet personalities had been edited and morphed. Some examples of this are given below.

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Sandrine Dans Clarifies Ad is Fake

Belgian TV presenter Sandrine Danes shared a screenshot of the advertisement on her Instagram, calling it fake and clarifying that an edited picture was being circulated. The RTBF domain could also be seen in the preview link of this ad. Ophélie Fontana, a journalist with Belgium’s public broadcaster Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF), said that she had also filed a complaint over the matter. (Source)

Journalist Karan Thapar Calls Out Fake Ad

On November 1, senior Indian journalist Karan Thapar issued a statement on the news portal ‘The Wire’ calling such advertisements fake. He had also filed a complaint with the police on this matter.

 

Alt News reached out to Karan Thapar for more information. He shared a copy of the complaint lodged with Delhi Police. It contained screenshots of pages named Houston Christian University and Amaury et Quentin. The complaint states that clicking on the posts of these pages opens a replica website called BBC.COM. There is also a fake interview by ‘Sun TV’ featuring Karan Thapar on that website in which a money making scheme was being promoted. Thapar’s team first reported these posts through the Report option on Facebook, upon which the platform did not take any action. Following this, they filed a complaint with Delhi Police. Karan Thapar’s lawyer Munawwar Naseem had informed Facebook’s Grievance Officer about this, after which he was told the content did not violate their community guidelines. Thapar’s lawyer had appealed this to the Grievance Appellate Committee of the Government of India, after which the committee gave an order in favour of the journalist on December 18 and directed Facebook to remove the fake interview. It is worth noting that the two advertisements the Grievance Appellate Committee of the Government of India directed Facebook to delete could still be found on Facebook as posts (1, 2) at the time of writing.

In an article dated November 4 of this year, BBC Hindi described the website running in the name of BBC as fake and had clarified that it had no affiliation to BBC.

Sun TV’s Response

One of the fake websites featured a supposed interview that Thapar gave to ‘Sun TV’. The real outlet also responded to the incident, terming it as fake and denying its involvement in it.

Polish Singer and TV Presenter Rafał Brzozowski’s Image Morphed

Polish news website ‘Show News‘ reported that a photo of Rafał Brzozowski in handcuffs was being shared on social media, but the link was promoting a money-making scheme. When ‘Show News’ contacted Rafał Brzozowski on the matter, he stated that he had never promoted such a platform and the news of his apparent arrest was fake. It was being circulated with a morphed image.

Fake URLs of Media Outlets

The advertisements featuring senior journalists Karan Thapar and Shweta Singh, Indian industrialist Ratan Tata, Indian actress Kriti Sanon, and Karan Johar, host of ‘Koffee with Karan’ along with South African TV presenter Leanne Manas were displayed on impostor pages of BBC, India Today and South African news website News24. Given below are archived links to some of these.

octequiti.com (BBC) – https://archive.is/npYB0

octequiti.com (BBC) – https://archive.is/7jZ6O

octtrendi.com (BBC) – https://archive.is/dRMe2

octshareb.com (BBC) – https://archive.is/HiVUa

octshareb.com (News24) – https://archive.is/JFCWa

octeconi.com (BBC) – https://archive.is/YjJ0c

Thapar was shown promoting money-making schemes on BBC’s impostor website. In an article dated November 4. BBC Hindi issued a statement saying, “We confirm that this is not BBC content, and urge everyone to check links and URLs to ensure they are getting their news from trustworthy sources.”

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The ads used the domains of Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD), British media outlet BBC, Australia’s national broadcaster, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat (HS) most frequently.

Along with this, the photographs and names of personalities from Australia, India, Belgium, Finland and The Netherlands were used the most in these advertisements.

Among the fake ads being run on Facebook, the photographs and names of Karan Thapar, Polish singer and TV presenter Rafał Brzozowski, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nahmer, Belgian singer Natalia Willy Druyts, and Danish lifestyle expert Annie Glad were used most frequently.

Loophole in Facebook’s Ad Mechanism Not Addressed for Years

In 2016, Canadian hacker Justin Seitz wrote a blog post in which he pointed out a similar loophole in Facebook’s advertising system. In this, he showed how any website could run ads using the URL of any other website through the ‘display link’ present in Facebook’s advertising backend, and how such ads got approved due to a loophole in Facebook’s automation system. He described these types of advertisements as ‘Bait and Switch’. The complete blog post is available here.

How Do These Ads Work?

Alt News posted a demo ad on Facebook on November 14 to test this mechanism. In this ad, we copied the scam websites and placed a link of the news outlet ‘The Wire’, and named it as Alt News in the link preview, so that the people seeing the advertisement would think that it was a link to Alt News, whereas in reality it was a link to ‘The Wire’. We used this article from ‘The Wire’ because the link we have used in the ad is actually a republished article from Alt News.

Meta first flagged our ad saying that the website link in the ad was not included in the preview link or title link. The platform recommended that we verify ownership of the domain to use custom display links in ads. There was also a ‘Request Review’ option.

Our ad was approved within a few minutes of us requesting a review without making any changes to it. This advertisement is still available as a post on Facebook, and an archived link to it can be found here.

This ad, which was live for just a few hours, received over 700 clicks. This demonstrates how running an ad using the name of a media outlet can generate clicks.

This confirmed that Facebook approved the advertisements being run by these pages featuring propaganda in the name of many public figures, using the names and credibility of many international media outlets.

The screenshot below illustrates that when an advertiser creates an ad to run on Facebook, they are asked to provide information related to graphics, URLs, etc. There is also a ‘Display Link’ box present in it. For example, it can be seen how we have included the URL of ‘The Wire’ in our ad, but in the display link we have used the domain of ‘Alt News’, and the name of Alt News is also visible in the preview. Similar to how we ran this ad, many pages run ads using this loophole to promote scam websites using the names of famous personalities and the credibility of international media outlets.

Facebook’s Stance on the Matter

In 2017, Forbes published a report citing a blog by Canadian hacker Justin Seitz that exposed a loophole in Facebook’s advertising system. In it, the outlet interviewed Seitz and also quoted a Facebook spokesperson on this. Facebook’s then-spokesman Tom Channick defended the option to edit the URL, saying, “The use of this option is not always deceptive or malicious.” He said, for example, when a non-profit organisation was running a donation drive using Facebook ads through a third-party site, it may want to have its domain name appear in the ad. The website’s domain may appear to be a link to an advertisement running through a third-party site. Channick, speaking to Forbes, defended the option to display links in Facebook ads, saying that it was not always an unexpected or confusing experience for a user.

Responding to Facebook’s statement, Seitz said that allowing differences in display URLs and landing pages was a terrible idea. He disagreed with Facebook’s argument, which cited an example of a hypothetical non-profit organisation, saying any organisation could easily create a landing page on its website that would direct users to the donation site.

We informed Facebook about such an advertisement on November 4, 2023 and sent them some questions related to it, but we have not received any response from them. Besides, the advertisement which we flagged to the platform in an email is still live following the publication of this article, and can be accessed here.