A fake historical post created with AI tools and released yesterday on Facebook (annotated photo attached), illustrates the huge new problem that Meta, Facebook’s parent, is now wrestling with worldwide.
The inspirational story of “Dr Pita Faleolo“, a hard-working Samoan who allegedly pulled himself up by his bootstraps to become a professor in Pacific Studies at Auckland University is a good example of the problem.
It was completely fake – no such person has ever existed by that name at the university, though someone like “Pita” probably exists somewhere in the academic world and helped form the basis for this AI-derived concoction by unethical creators looking for ‘likes’ and followers so that they can monetise their page and earn a few dollars from Meta.
Historical and entertainment industry posts, in particular, on Facebook have now become a rowdy Wild West saloon bar of AI clickbait cowboys. This tsunami of humbug is steadily drowning and debasing these niches and rendering them futile and uninviting for genuine researchers and communicators.
The Facebook page which carried the “Pita Faleolo” life story is called “Kiwi Proudly‘ (look it up) which has built up 41,000 followers just in the space of several weeks since launch. Indications from its sister page suggest that it is based in India and has a few creators churning out several posts a day, most of which feature AI photos and invented people with New Zealand or Pacifica backgrounds, in what I call ‘Feel Good / Feel Bad’ situations.
The posts tell historical stories with an inspirational message or a message exploiting hot-button social or political issues of grievance (e.g. racism, underprivilege and institutional injustice) to drive shares, likes and comments – what Facebook calls “engagement”. It’s a cynical and often divisive manipulation of unsuspecting readers in order to achieve financial ends.
Put simply, the output of dollar-chasing hucksters in digital sweatshops and clickbait factories is now everywhere on Facebook.
For Meta, this is a real dilemma, the ultimate existential, capitalist irony. As AI fakery turbocharges engagement, advertising, and profit (the Meta platforms now attract the world’s biggest share of digital advertising), the damage to Facebook’s reputation, respectability and user trust is real and rising.
It’s a meme for the planet – booming economically but at the cost of its life support systems. A template for the doomed modern age.
Mark Zuckerberg knows that despite the river of cash he has a real problem. The Meta Oversight Board told him in 2025 and in early 2026 that AI controls are not working and that he has to do better. The platform is well aware of the booming problem of fictitious posts (in the history sector Meta staff call them, “hallucinations with historical framing“).
The Oversight Board said that Facebook was not doing enough to stem the tide of AI-enhanced hoaxes and misinformation. Currently, Meta will not disestablish a Facebook page merely for telling lies. The interpretation of what a lie is can sometimes be arguable, I get that. And good on them, up to a point, for defending freedom of speech.
But there are lines you can’t cross. Already in 2026 Meta say they have deleted 10 million profiles for impersonating real people and another 500,000 for spamming.
It says its sensors can detect unoriginal content and the platform penalises those pages by relatively passive means – demonetising them, refusing to monetise them, or restricting distribution and audience through canny use of the Facebook algorithm.
(Disclosure: in 2025 Facebook without a request on my part upgraded my profile to ‘Professional’ status because of its original content and because followers topped 11,000. They said I was free to monetise my page, a kind offer which I have not taken up, but thank you).
Up till now the anonymous controllers of Kiwi Proudly have not been monetised despite followers hitting 41,000. The Facebook surveillance system seems to be working. The page is a busy juggernaut but the flimsy guardrails are holding.
But is it enough?
Viral distribution of fake posts by anonymous profiles still seems to be possible and is all over the place when I log on. Trusting readers are being used and manipulated in their hundreds of thousands.
The shareholders of Meta are laughing all the way to the bank but the vehicle that gets them there is developing lethal problems under the bonnet. There’s a rattling noise and clouds of smoke.
This wondrous machine needs a service and a whole lot of new parts.
About the Author
Tony Brunt
Tony Brunt is a writer, historian, and photo archivist based in Auckland, New Zealand. He serves as Photo Archivist & Consultant at the Museum of Samoa. His work brings light to overlooked Pacific histories using personal archives, photography, and field research. Tony has also served in various public and civic roles in New Zealand, including on the Wellington City Council and as a former Executive Councillor at the NZ Academy of Fine Arts.
