New Zealand PM Used As Pawn In Fake News Site

Published 5 years ago on October 12, 2018

New Zealand PM Used As Pawn In Fake News Site

Jacinda Arden, Prime Minister of New Zealand has had her face used by a fake news site in order to promote articles aimed at Facebook to encourage a crypto startup.A local media source, ‘Stuff’ reported on Friday that multiple sponsored posts have recently been promoted on Facebook by using the likeness of the New Zealand PM with headlines such as New Investment Plan For Kiwis which were targeted at several different age groups around the country.The Facebook posts had a link to a fake news website which appeared to be similar and taking the likeness of CNN Tech. the articles on the site also falsely claimed that the countries Treasury Department had just signed a $250 million deal to buy a company called Bitcoin Revolution. After Stuff reported the posts to the Prime Minister's office, there was a complaint made to Facebook which then moved to remove the advertised content, according to the report. In addition to this, it appears that this isn’t the first time that fake news sites have used Adern as for digital currency promotions. A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister’s office was quoted saying that the number of such fake advertisements has become too large for them to track.

"We aren't able to manually or digitally monitor the increasing volume of fake news that fraudulently uses images of the Prime Minister."

This news comes as just another instance where scammers used social media as a way to use fake campaigns to aim them at internet users. In April this year, Lewis started the lawsuit against Facebook claiming that the scammers have been using his trusted reputation in order to hook people into their scams.The Money Saving Expert is currently in talks with executives over at Facebook as they are discussing an out of court settlement. However, if it does end up going to court and Lewis wins the lawsuit he will be donating all the profits to charity. According to CoinDesk, “just yesterday, a verified Twitter account impersonating entrepreneur Elon Musk had been allowed to promote a tweet for a crypto giveaway scam.”What are your thoughts? Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

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Adrian Barkley

Adrian is an avid reader who first stumbled across Crypto after reading 'The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains' by Antony Lewis in 2018. Since then, Adrian has immersed himself within the industry, and has a real interest in Enterprise Blockchain solutions.