Graham Norton wins court case over deepfake AI Facebook posts

Graham Norton has won a court case in the US which will force tech giant Meta to reveal who was behind some “deeply upsetting” deepfake Facebook posts.

The television host and comedian said in a California court that he wanted documents from Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram and Threads, to help identify the person behind the page Westminster Wire.

According to the Irish Independent, Norton alleged the Facebook page had been publishing a series of false claims, such as reports of his mum’s death, or his own ill health. He has also been the target of fake, AI-generated images, and falsely attributed to “offensive, racist, or otherwise deeply objectionable views and conduct”.

Meta asks that AI-generated imagery should be labelled as such, and deceptive AI-based content is removed or penalised. It’s likely that the offending account would be banned due to Meta’s “Inauthentic Behaviour and Misinformation” guidelines.

Norton said the fake posts have been causing “very significant alarm, distress, and anxiety”.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK judge Norton told the court: “My 94-year-old mother uses Facebook and has been confronted with reports of her own death.”

‘My professional reputation is of the utmost importance to my career and livelihood’

He has since been forced to spend time proving the stories as fake after friends read about the “ill health” of him and his husband, Jonathan McLeod. The Eurovision narrator also told the court that he has not been hospitalised, donated money or held “racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant or otherwise divisive and hateful” views which the account linked to him.

Norton is now aiming to launch a legal challenge in the High Court in England against whoever is behind Westminster Wire.

Court documents show the account operates anonymously, and posts multiple times each day, according to Norton.

He wants to find out the operator’s identity as without it, he is “unable to bring [his] claim or obtain the injunctive relied [he] urgently needs to stop the ongoing harassment”.

Norton said: “My professional reputation is of the utmost importance to my career and livelihood. I rely on my reputation as a broadcaster and public figure whose views are well-known to the public, my employers, and my commercial partners.”

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