Reeves has become a draw for such scams because pretty much everybody everywhere on Earth likes (him), Keegan wrote. — AFP
Keanu Reeves often gets called the nicest, coolest A-lister in Hollywood. But he also has become known to cause problems for himself and his fans.
The John Wick and Matrix star is probably the most impersonated celebrity on the Internet, which has forced him to pay a Seattle-based AI company thousands of dollars a month to find his online imitators and get companies like TikTok and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to shut them down.
Reeves' battle against online scammers, using his likeness for romance scams, political messaging and other purposes, is described in a new story by The Hollywood Reporter. A writer for the entertainment industry publication went undercover, in a social media way, to spend time communicating with a fake Reeves account.
At one point in June, Keanu_Reeves68667 tried to get the writer, Rebecca Keegan, to buy a bogus US$600 (RM2,547) fan club membership in order to meet the actor "in person for sure." This entreaty came around the same time that the real Reeves was posing for photos on the red carpet with his girlfriend, artist Alexandra Grant, at the premiere for the John Wick spinoff Ballerina, Keegan said.
Keegan also spent time with data scientist Luke Arrigoni. He runs a three-year-old company, Loti AI, which has become an industry leader in "likeness technology protection." It helps celebrities, athletes, business leaders and other public figures protect their images from unauthorised AI-generated content and deepfakes.
With Reeves' permission, Arrigoni revealed to Keegan that Loti had issued nearly 40,000 account takedown orders on the actor's behalf over the past year. Reeves enlisted Arrigoni to do this work because he is well aware of the way his image is being manipulated online. "He cares very much about how his fans are treated, and he's very invested in trying to solve this problem," Arrigoni told the Hollywood Reporter.
Reeves has become a draw for such scams because "pretty much everybody everywhere on Earth likes (him)," Keegan wrote. But in addition to being likable, Reeves also is "mysterious," Keegan said. He doesn't maintain a presence on social media and he limits what he shares about himself publicly.
Meanwhile, the opportunists have used Reeves' likeness in a variety of ways. "In one subgenre of fakery, Reeves appears to hold up a T-shirt with political messaging on it, sometimes pro-left, some pro-right," Keegan reported.
"In one doctored image, he seems to be endorsing Donald Trump. In another, he is raising awareness of the Indigenous children who were forced into abusive boarding schools in Canada. Most of these are photoshopped alterations of a Getty Images picture of Reeves attending a motorcycle fair in Italy in 2017."
Once Loti issues its takedown orders to social media platforms, it typically takes the platforms about 48 hours to resolve the problem. Unfortunately, "in that brief window, scammers can do a lot of damage," Keegan reported.
According to the latest data from the FBI, Americans reported US$672mil (RM2.bil) in losses to confidence and romance scams in 2024, Keegan reported. The targets of such scams tend to be people over the age of 60, with Keegan also reporting on the case of a 73-year-old woman who lost some US$100,000 (RM424,599) to someone online impersonating Kevin Costner.
This fake Costner convinced the woman to make weekly bitcoin deposits, saying the money would be used to start a new production company.
"She also was lonely and restless as her marriage was failing, her career had ended and her kids and grandkids were busy with their own lives," Keegan wrote. "(Fake) Costner's messages represented some welcome male attention, a fantasy to drop into when real life got too real."
At one point, this woman received a photo of the actor, leaning against the wooden headboard of a bed. Fake Costner was holding up a piece of paper that read, "It's really me Kevin Costner. I love you so much... i can't wait to meet you." – Silicon Valley, San Jose, Calif./Tribune News Service
