A Canadian television host has once again fallen victim to a bizarre series of fake ads circulating on X, leaving many users of the website questioning its advertising policies.
Mary Berg is an author and cook who you may recognize as the winner of the third season of MasterChef Canada and as the host of The Good Stuff on CTV.
Berg is known for her easy-to-follow recipes and cheerful demeanour on TV, but recently, she appeared to be trending on X for a very strange reason.
Earlier this month, X users said that they kept seeing ads being posted about Berg.
But the ads were not showcasing Berg’s cooking or her TV show; rather, they were falsely claiming that she had been arrested.
Easily the weirdest type of ad twitter is serving me now is this: badly photoshopped images of a tv host getting arrested. This isn't real, Mary Berg has done nothing except wear cool glasses and cook stuff on tv. But apparently you can now use Twitter ads to smear people. pic.twitter.com/rW32tpLzFX
— Steve Boots (@steve_boots) January 5, 2024
As one X user mentioned, the ads were poorly photoshopped and clearly fake.
Others who weren’t familiar with the chef and host were left to wonder who she was and why she was showing up in these ads on their X feeds.
“My Twitter feed is crammed with really poorly done fake hit pieces about Mary Berg,” wrote one X user.
My feed today is 50% ads featuring fake news stories about Mary Berg, 50% posts from Canadians wondering why there are so many of these ads
— Paul Fairie (@paulisci) January 5, 2024
My twitter feed is crammed with really poorly done fake hit pieces about Mary Berg. I've blocked dozens, literally. You still expect these platforms to police misinformation? They actually take money to share it.
— Shaye Ganam (@ShayeGanam) January 5, 2024
Americans are missing the weird Mary Berg phenomenon where phishing scammers are claiming an overly perky TV cooking/talk show host is some kind of criminal. @X management should do something about, because they're helping criminals commit libel. pic.twitter.com/pnvrlZkfv0
— Duncan MacMaster The Internet’s Sweetheart (@FuriousDShow) January 5, 2024
OK seriously WTF is with the endless Mary Berg promoted content / ads I'm getting spammed with now. Anyone else? pic.twitter.com/wd9QVNCvNJ
— The Perfidious SH (@perfidiousSH) January 5, 2024
“If a former MasterChef Canada can get this kind of visibility on this site thanks to paid ads (with really poor Photoshop jobs btw), what does it say about this site?” noted another user.
If a former MasterChef Canada can get this kind of visibility on this site thanks to paid ads (with really poor photoshop jobs btw), what does it say about this site? pic.twitter.com/w30GmTtuc2
— Adam Toy (@Adam_Toy) January 5, 2024
It appears that Berg is trending on X once again, due to more strange fake ads.
Is advertising on Elon Musk's Twitter SO cheap that every Canadian on here is constantly subjected to one person's weird vendetta/smear campaign against… Mary Berg? pic.twitter.com/YXLOopRJxO
— Kelvin! (@HeyItsKelvin) January 15, 2024
I try not to pay attention to the bottom of the barrel grifter ads on this trash site, but I've gotta ask, who has it in for Canadian cooking show host Mary Berg, of all people? I'm being bombarded with these. pic.twitter.com/iilZPT1CIH
— Erik Leijon (@eleijon) January 15, 2024
Me, scrolling: Time to enjoy some quality timeline content …
Timeline: DO YOU KNOW WHAT WHOLESOME CANADIAN CELEBRITY CHEF MARY BERG DID??? pic.twitter.com/FOL5jTTHSs— Barry Hertz (@HertzBarry) January 15, 2024
After Elon Musk took over X, several controversial changes have been introduced to the website that many users have called out for lacking transparency and promoting misinformation.
In October, Mashable reported that X rolled out a new “clickbait” ad format that doesn’t allow users to retweet or “like” the advertisement posts. The posts aren’t even marked as an ad and it doesn’t disclose the organization that published them.
In a previous statement to Daily Hive, Bell Medi — the parent company of CTV — said it is aware of the fake advertisements targeting Berg.
“Bell Media actively reports the fraudulent content to ensure swift removal,” a company representative said in an email.
“We encourage social media users to remain vigilant against these deceptive ads and report suspicious content to the platform they’re using.”
According to X’s manipulation and spam policy, users are not permitted to “use X’s services in a manner intended to artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behaviour that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience or platform manipulation defences on X.”
X adds that it “does not allow spam or other types of platform manipulation.”
Berg has not yet commented publicly about the fake ads.
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