The Australian competition authority has filed a lawsuit against Facebook owner Meta, accusing the tech giant of running a fraudulent ad campaign featuring celebrity images on its platform.
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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said that Facebook ads encouraging users of the platform to invest in cryptocurrencies and participate in other earning schemes may have misled users into believing that well-known Australians are involved in the campaign . Therefore, the agency sued Meta, which owns Facebook, blaming them “sponsored, abetted or knowingly engaged in false or misleading actions and statements by advertisers”.
As the head of the ACCC, Rod Sims, explained, the bottom line is that Meta is responsible for the advertising published on its platform. According to the official, the company was aware that the fraudulent ads were being posted on Facebook but did not take sufficient steps to address it. The company itself said that such ads violate its policies, technological solutions are used to detect and block them, and the incident is being investigated in close cooperation with ACCC. However, Meta intends to defend herself in court.
The agency clarified that the advertising campaign used photos of leading Australian businessmen, TV presenters and politicians, and links from advertisements to fake media articles containing quotes attributed to these individuals. Scammers responded to user requests and dragged them into their schemes. One of the consumers was revealed to have lost A$650,000 (about $480,000) on these schemes.
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