A court case against Meta in Australia has revealed that the company continues to generate revenue from fraudulent ads featuring celebrities. More than half of the cryptocurrency ads analyzed on Facebook, are scams and violate Meta’s policies.
In 2022, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) sued Meta for publishing fraudulent ads featuring celebrities. We wrote about it here: https://cpa.rip/en/news/australia-sues-facebook/.
On August 9, 2024, the court issued an order in the case, which disclosed the ACCC’s allegation that since January 2018, “Meta has been aware that a significant portion of cryptocurrency ads on the Facebook platform have used misleading or deceptive promotional practices.”
In the court filing, the ACCC said that more than 58% of the Facebook ads and landing pages for those ads reviewed violated Meta’s “advertising policies” and involved fraud.
The ACCC has originally included more than 600 scam ads in the lawsuit but is now focusing on 234 ads including those featuring celebrities such as: Andrew Forrest (who previously filed his lawsuit against Meta), Chris Hemsworth, David Koch, Dick Smith, Chris Brown, Liam Hemsworth, Mike Baird, Waleed Ali, Celeste Barber, Justin Hemmes, Harry Triguboff, Travers Beynon, Mike Amore, Nicole Kidman, Mike Cannon-Brooks, Scott Pape, Eddie McGuire, Karl Stefanovic, Mark Ferguson, Mel Gibson, Daniel Riccardo, Anthony Pratt, Russell Crowe, Frank Lowe, and James Packer.
According to the government website https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/research-and-resources/scam-statistics investment scams were the most common in Australia (more than $78 million in losses), followed by romance fraud and phishing attacks.
The regulator has said that while Meta stops showing individual ads and pages after receiving complaints and blocks associated accounts, the company continues to show and generate revenue from similar ads featuring the same celebrities.
According to Meta, only in 2023 action was taken against hundreds of thousands of accounts, including those targeting Australia.
“Scammers use every platform available to them and constantly adapt to evade enforcement. Meta does not want scams on its platforms and we will continue to work tirelessly to protect our users.”
“When a scam occurs, typically our services represent only part of the attack chain, meaning we do not have visibility of the scam from end to end,” a Meta spokesperson said.
Last month, responding to questions from members of parliament as part of an investigation into social media fraud, Meta said that in addition to suspending ads and deleting accounts, it also took legal action against unscrupulous users who violate company policies.
In June, Meta announced that new advertisers on the platform may be required to verify the phone number associated
It’s worth noting that no hearing date has yet been set for ACCC v. Meta.
- Court documents of the case: https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/2024/890.html
- More information on the case is available here.
