James Rowe: Booking a trip after seeing a picture or video on social media can be risky, given AI posts are luring visitors to attractions that don't even exist.
Hello, I'm James Rowe and welcome to Which Shorts, your free weekly insight into Which? magazine, as well as our money, tech, travel, and gardening titles, too. Today, I'm bringing you a piece that Naomi Leach wrote for the May–June issue of Which Travel, all about AI-generated content on social media duping people into booking trips to events and attractions that are entirely fictional. Naomi explains why this is becoming a bigger problem and what you can do to spot these fake posts. Here's Naomi's piece, adapted for the podcast this week, read by Erica McKoy.
Erica McKoy: Whether you're searching your social media feed to get inspiration for a day out or simply stumble upon an enticing event, some dreamy imagery can stop you mid-scroll. One video on the social media app Threads showed a reporter with a scenic mountain backdrop interviewing people queuing in front of a new cable car ride. That was enough to convince an elderly couple on holiday in Thailand to travel more than 200 miles out of their way to experience it. Unfortunately, Kuak Skyride doesn't exist, nor did the crowds, nor the reporter. The video was created anonymously using AI and then promoted via social media channels to generate revenue each time it's clicked.
This is part of a growing trend on social media of days out and attractions that sell a complete fantasy. It could be a hot-air balloon festival in your nearest national park, a candlelit concert in a country estate that's never been open to the public before, or a hidden spring in your next holiday destination. And you'll need to have your wits about you to distinguish fake AI-generated content from real-world attractions.
It can be an expensive mistake if you do fall for a fake. Royal family fan, Vathoulla, was thrilled when an image of a Christmas tree and festive-lit stalls outside Buckingham Palace popped up on her Instagram feed. The post claimed that the King's London residence would be hosting its first-ever Christmas market pop-up. Vathoulla and her sister paid for pricey train tickets into the capital, but when they arrived, there was no Christmas market. She asked an assistant at the souvenir shop in the Royal Mews where to find the market and was told she wasn't the first person to have fallen for the ad. When Vathoulla left the shop, she heard another visitor repeat the same query.
As with the Kuak Skyride, it's not clear who created the original post Vathoulla saw. It was posted on several Instagram accounts and widely picked up via the london.travelers account, which itself has 2.5 million followers. Although london.travelers later deleted the post, it had already spread at the speed of a share button. We approached london.travelers for comment, but it didn't respond.
So, why are there so many fake days out suddenly on social media? Sometimes they're created on purpose. When you can earn from £100 per post as an influencer with 1,000 to 10,000 followers, known as a nano-influencer, to £18,000 per post if you're a mega-influencer of more than 1 million followers, any content that mines engagement is valuable. Depending on your business model, you can get paid per click or earn revenue from affiliate purchases, where a person clicks on a link you've posted and goes on to make a purchase. And as AI adoption grows, it promises creators quick and easy content they can publish in minutes.
At other times, AI simply hallucinates events and attractions. That's where AI is prompted to create a certain type of content but then perceives patterns that don't exist and creates inaccurate or nonsensical outputs. Companies and influencers then post or promote this content without checking it first. Whether a creator intentionally shares fake content or is unwittingly duped by AI, this quest for likes and shares without fact-checking is helping misinformation surge. Those clicks, and even the comments warning viewers that a post is fake, contribute to the algorithm and boost their social media presence and their revenue. At best, a creator's lack of care around AI-generated content is rewarded, and at worst, it can be exploited by scammers.
Scams on social media channels targeting days out and events are a real problem, too. Scammers duplicate social media pages of legitimate events or organisations to hijack their ticket sales. The British Air Display Association, or BADA, warns about third-party websites in Asia targeting attendees of UK airshow events on an industrial scale. Genuine Facebook pages run by associated organisations are contacted by scammers asking them to co-host events with BADA, which are fake. The scammers either try to sell tickets or access to an unofficial livestream.
To protect your money when buying tickets to any event, the UK cybercrime reporting centre, Action Fraud, has some general advice. Check the official website of the venue to confirm the event is really taking place, and only buy tickets directly from the box office or well-known ticket sites. Never pay for tickets by bank transfer, and use your credit card or PayPal to give yourself a better chance of claiming your money back if you're a victim of fraud. When using a credit card, small amounts can be recovered via chargeback, and purchases over £100 are protected by Section 75.
If you spot a misleading advert on Meta platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Threads, you can click the three dots in the feed and click 'report ad'. Ticket and X have their own in-app reporting tools. If you're not sure what a fake or AI-generated post looks like, then keep an eye out for flawless images and so-called AI glitches that might, for example, give someone an extra finger or generate nonsensical text on signs. Do a reverse image search to find the original source, and double-check all logos are correct. On videos, unnatural movements and voices that don't match the person's speaking can be a dead giveaway. Pay attention to any web address that is mentioned to ensure it's legitimate. Check the number of likes and comments on the post, too. A low number of likes can be a warning sign, as can comments being turned off or the comment section being flooded with lots of positive bot reviews with similar wording.
