Fake adverts for weight loss drugs by a company pretending to be health and beauty retailer Boots have been removed from TikTok after the firm complained.<\/p>\n
The adverts for prescription-only weight loss drugs appeared to show smiling healthcare professionals from the British retailer – but in reality they were made with AI.<\/p>\n
It is illegal to advertise prescription-only weight loss drugs to the public.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Boots told the BBC the firm was \u00ab\u00a0aware\u00a0\u00bb of the videos and had complained to TikTok, which said it had removed the videos.<\/p>\n
A TikTok spokesperson said it did not allow \u00ab\u00a0harmful or misleading AI-generated ads\u00a0\u00bb on its platform.<\/p>\n
But the BBC found while the videos were removed, the account – seemingly located in Hong Kong – was not.<\/p>\n
It was able to re-upload the exact same videos despite the originals being removed.<\/p>\n
TikTok was again notified of this, and the user was subsequently deleted.<\/p>\n
Weight-loss jabs have been available on the NHS in England since the end of June, but they are not available over-the-counter and patients must meet strict criteria in order to be eligible for a prescription.<\/p>\n
Before the fake Boots account was removed, its videos linked to a website where weight loss drugs could be bought.<\/p>\n
It featured testimonies from customers and doctors which were either made with AI or taken from other websites.<\/p>\n
The TikTok videos showed what appeared to be health workers drinking from a vial of blue liquid.<\/p>\n
This would then appear to jump forward several months, with the workers apparently having lost a drastic amount of weight.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0AI now makes it trivially easy to generate a convincing series of videos or images showing an apparent change in a plausibly real generic health professional, or to impersonate specific health professionals wholesale,\u00a0\u00bb AI expert Sam Gregory told the BBC.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0The underlying question is how quickly and comprehensively platforms act when they detect – or are notified of – scams that clearly breach their terms of service.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Major brands like Boots will get prioritised over an individual business owner who’s been targeted.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Other videos uploaded by the same account on TikTok seemed to have used content originally posted by real people, showcasing their weight-loss journey, but repurposed and used without permission.<\/p>\n
All of the videos used similar branding and names to that of the official Boots account on TikTok – using the handle \u00ab\u00a0@BootsOfficial\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Boots said it only runs adverts on social media through its actual account @BootsUK.<\/p>\n
The website also included warnings from the MHRA, the UK’s governmental body that ensures medicines and medical devices are safe, about purchasing counterfeit products.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the body told the BBC weight loss medicines \u00ab\u00a0should only be obtained from a registered pharmacy against a prescription issued by a healthcare professional\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Taking these medicines sourced in any other way carries serious risks to your health with no guarantees about what they contain,\u00a0\u00bb they said.<\/p>\n
TikTok said it would continue to \u00ab\u00a0strengthen\u00a0\u00bb its detection methods for AI-generated content and it does not allow \u00ab\u00a0the depiction, promotion, or trade of controlled substances\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
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Fake adverts for weight loss drugs by a company pretending to be health and beauty retailer Boots have been removed from TikTok after the firm complained. The adverts for prescription-only weight loss drugs appeared to show smiling healthcare professionals from the British retailer – but in reality they were made with AI. It is illegal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}