It\u2019s shocking that social media companies are allowed to accept payments from criminals to run bogus advertisements on their channels to defraud the Irish public, according to Social Democrats finance spokesperson Cian O\u2019Callaghan.<\/p>\n
Deputy O\u2019Callaghan said:<\/p>\n
\u201cFraudSmart, the fraud awareness initiative led by the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland, has reported that there has been a recent surge in AI-generated online adverts promoting bogus state-backed investment schemes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na, investment fraud rose by over 20% last year, with losses exceeding \u20ac20 million. AI has empowered these scams to deceive more and more of the population, especially those over the age of 50, and this trend is continuing in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast month, research published by the Central Bank showed that more than one in three people have been the victims of fraud, and almost two-thirds have lost money as a result. The weaponisation of AI could cause these dire figures to rise even further.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese fake investment schemes are being advertised on social media platforms. The criminals behind them are paying to have their scams advertised on social media to vulnerable individuals.<\/p>\n
\u201cSocial media giants should not be allowed to make money from hosting fraudulent ads. Research carried out by Revolut in February found that social media companies earned an estimated \u20ac32 million last year from scam advertisements targeted at Irish people.<\/p>\n
\u201cSocial media companies are profiting off people\u2019s misery and the Government is doing nothing to stop it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2024, Department of Finance officials proposed that tech companies would have to vet those who can post financial investment ads. This is a no-brainer proposal that should be in place already but has seen zero action from this Government.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m reiterating my call for Minister for Finance Simon Harris to explain why he has failed to act on the proposals put forward by his department in relation to scams and fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n
May 28th, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s shocking that social media companies are allowed to accept payments from criminals to run bogus advertisements on their channels to defraud the Irish public, according to Social Democrats finance spokesperson Cian O\u2019Callaghan. Deputy O\u2019Callaghan said: \u201cFraudSmart, the fraud awareness initiative led by the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland, has reported that there has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[593,278,88,840,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-cian-ocallaghan","category-finance","category-fraud","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n