The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has initiated legal proceedings against Goal alleging that it allowed the diffusion in Facebook of false and misleading conduct through fraudulent ads in which famous people from this country appeared.
This organization has accused the company founded by mark zuckerbergwhich hosts, in addition to Facebook, other social networks such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Messengerof breaching the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act (ASIC Act).
According to the ACCC in a statement, Meta “aided, abetted, or was knowingly involved“in misleading representations by advertisers promoting investment in cryptocurrencies.
By allowing their publication on Facebook, the technology company would have contributed to the victims believing that these campaigns were legitimized by Australian public figureslike the TV presenter David Koch or the businessman dick smithas well as the former Premier of New South Wales, mike baird.
This body has ensured that these ads contained links that took Facebook users to fake items allegedly published by real media in which they appeared quotes attributed to these characters.
In them, celebrities endorsed investments in cryptocurrencies or other supposedly legitimate money-making methods, through which they would have obtained hefty rewards.
Thanks to the use of the image of these people, the victims proceeded to register in said links and the scammers pressured them, by phone callsso that they will deposit money in these false bottoms.
“The essence of this is that Meta is responsible for these ads because they are published on their platform,” said the president of the ACC, Rod Sims, in this writing.
From the Australian body they allege that Meta was aware of the existence of these ads and that “did not take sufficient steps to address the problem“, as these ads have remained despite complaints from the celebrities involved.
“Meta should have been doing more to detect and then remove false or misleading ads on Facebook to prevent consumers from were victims of ruthless swindlersSims added.
The ACC believes that in addition to the untold losses to consumers from the scams, these ads also damage the reputations of public figures falsely associated with the false ads.
Likewise, Sims has given the example of a case of a user cheated by one of these advertisers present in the deceived social network, who lost more than $650,000 because “in one of these scams it was falsely advertised as a investment opportunity in Facebook itself“.
It is not the first complaint against Facebook
The ACC has reported that it is seeking statements, injunctions and sanctions to hold Facebook accountable to those involved and has encouraged people who have been victims to report these scams online. scam watchbelonging to the organization.
Lastly, it has detailed background related to Meta and its revenue from the sale of ads that are shown to users on both Facebook and the Internet. Instagram.
Thus, he has said that in 2021 the global advertising revenue of Meta Platform was $115 billionwhile consumers reported losses of $99 million through Scamwatch due to cryptocurrency investment scams.
It should be remembered that in 2018 the United Kingdom filed a similar complaint against Meta, then Facebook, when the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, Martin Lewissued the company for repeatedly using his image in false advertisements distributed through the social network.
The litigation ended with a settlement in 2019, when Facebook agreed invest more resources to combat the use of your advertising platform by cyber criminals using celebrities to promote their scams.
One of these measures was the introduction of a button to report fraudulent advertisements and, subsequently, the company made available to users of Australia, the Netherlands and New Zealand a form to report these scams.
United Kingdomfor its part, is currently reviewing a bill for an ‘online’ security law, with which it is intended that the executive directors of technology companies have greater criminal liability if circumstances such as these occur.
It is a bill that was published in May 2021 and that, during these months, has been subject to a series of checks to penalize media outlets and platforms not cooperate with principles of privacy and protection of users.
Source: Lasexta
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
