Hundreds of excited Halloween enthusiasts lined the streets of Dublin last night to enjoy a Halloween parade advertised online through a website, as well as social media platforms like TikTok.
However, the public were left disappointed when the ‘event’ turned out to be little more than a phantom parade, most likely created with the sole intention of generating online advertising revenue.
The website, called My Spirit Halloween, advertised a Halloween parade that was due to kick off on O’Connell Street in central Dublin. However, no such parade arrived, leaving crowds of people lining the streets and creating chaos for bus and taxi drivers, before Irish Gardaí issued a statement on social media requesting visitors to disperse from the area, confirming no parade was scheduled.
Fake websites and fake events – the future?
My Spirit Halloween’s fake listing was able to achieve a high ranking on Google in the build up to Halloween. Once word spread about the non-existent event on platforms like Facebook and TikTok, a genuine audience of people planning to attend was created, with little work put in by the website’s founders to achieve this.
The Dublin parade listing is no longer on the My Spirit Halloween website, but the site itself is still up. Much of the website’s content appears to be AI-generated, as does some of the imagery used.
With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) making it easier than ever to throw a website, event listing or poster together, we can expect to see more falsely advertised or downright fake events in future.
Earlier this year, the infamous Willy’s Chocolate Experience used AI content and advertising to promote a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-themed event for families which, while successful in achieving unprecedented internet notoriety, was branded a disaster by attendees.
Whenever a website appears to be relying on the use of AI for its imagery and written content, it is always worth taking everything on the site with an extra pinch of salt, particularly if an event is being promoted.
At Engage Web, we like our clients to know that all of our websites are created via the hard work of our fantastic web designers and editing team. For a website both you and your audience can rely on, speak to a member of our team today.
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