By Nathan Ferguson
Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest – an Australian billionaire – has filed a criminal lawsuit against Facebook accusing the firm to have failed in preventing the fake ads of cryptocurrency from utilizing its platform’s image. The billionaire accuses Facebook (now rebranded as Meta Inc.) to have shown reckless and criminal behavior as it failed to stop the scam posts continuously circulating since 2019’s March, per a report published on the behalf of ABC News. The proceedings of this case have been initiated in the Western Australia Magistrates Court.
In addition to this, Forrest alleges the company for breaching the money-laundering laws of Australia by paying considerably less attention to confront the ads as well as it remained unsuccessful in controlling or making a corporate environment for the prevention of the systems thereof being utilized for carrying out such crimes. He stated that he is worried about the innocent citizens of Australia who are being swindled via clickbait ads spread on social media. While pointing towards the report, he added to be determined to guarantee that the operators of social media don’t permit criminal syndicates to utilize their websites.
Some modifications have been incorporated in Australia’s Commonwealth Criminal Code’s Part 10 with the efforts of the Attorney-General, according to the report. One of Meta’s spokespersons stated in the report to have taken a wide-ranging approach confronting such ads, and that they are not just focused on stopping the ads, rather restricting the advertisers from utilizing their services also. In some of the cases, the spokesperson elaborated, they also considered taking legal measures for the enforcement of the policies thereof. The report also brings out that the target of Meta is to keep scammers off its platform.
It does not count to be the initial instance when the giant of social media has been entangled in a situation of scams related to crypto ads. In 2018, Facebook was forced to prohibit the advertisement of anything having links with the crypto industry. The platform then categorized the ads as having links with deceptive or misleading promotional activities.
The respective decision got overturned to just the inclusion of the ICOs, as per the advertising policies thereof. While some are of the view that the company has left more space for swindlers to prey on their targets, Forrest believes that very little has been done by Facebook in this respect. A hearing of the respective case will take place on 28th March.