Video: Why are AI-generated lies about Finland flooding social media?
Accounts posting AI-generated content about Finland may be motivated by the chance to make money through Meta's Content Monetization programme.
Recent years have seen a surge in misleading claims about Finland circulating on social media platforms. These falsehoods, often featuring AI-generated images, include bizarre assertions such as schools resembling forests and electric power transmission without wires. Despite their far-fetched nature, these posts have proven surprisingly popular, amassing thousands of interactions and even reaching up to a million followers on accounts that share them.
According to a report by Yle's investigative journalism unit MOT, the administrators behind these pages are driven by the potential for financial gain. Through Meta's Content Monetization program, which Facebook and Instagram operate, creators can earn money based on their posts' engagement. Last year alone, Meta paid out around $3 billion to content creators, incentivizing the proliferation of viral content, even if it's inaccurate.
The investigation by MOT revealed that a significant number of these AI-driven pages originate from India and Pakistan, likely representing their intended audience. The University of Helsinki's senior researcher Niko Pyrhönen suggests that Finland's exotic image as a technological haven may make it an easy target for such disinformation. "Finland may appear as an exotic technology paradise when viewed from afar, which could make these AI-fueled claims more challenging to verify," Pyrhönen explained.
The investigation also highlighted that the collective follower count of these accounts spreading falsehoods about Finland is in the millions, indicating that the misinformation is reaching a broad global audience.
Written by urgent.news from Yle News Finland's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
