The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) says Meta is the slowest among social networks to respond to the regulator’s requests to remove content posted by influencers and financial fraudsters. In some cases, it takes up to six weeks.
Lucy Castledine, director of consumer investment at the FCA, said the regulator can identify fraudsters, but complying with requests to remove content is voluntary.
“The response [from the major social networks] in terms of auctioning takedown requests is pretty much 100%. However, the amount of time to action them can be significant. The time it takes varies by platform,” she told the Treasury committee, which is investigating “finfluencers” – celebrities who use their social media accounts to illegally promote financial products.
It cited the “week of action” in October 2024, during which the FCA questioned 20 influencers and issued 38 warnings.
“Meta took six weeks to act on those requests from the date the warning was issued and the takedown request was submitted,” said Lucy Castledine. – “Other platforms were more responsive.”
One of the main problems is that the FCA can only request the removal of one account at a time, and fraudsters create many similar accounts at once and quickly return after being blocked.
The FCA emphasizes that large technology companies, especially Meta, must act faster and more proactively, otherwise the fight against fraudsters turns into an endless game of cat and mouse.
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