Facebook Launches New Tool To Tackle Scam Adverts

Posted by Agency Report | 5 years ago | 1,291 times



Fresh efforts to tackle scam ads across Facebook are introduced in the UK today, following action taken by Martin Lewis.

A specially trained team has been tasked with investigating alerts raised by the British public who will review reports and take down violating adverts, in a bid to clamp down on potentially devastating misleading adverts.

The consumer champion dropped a campaign lawsuit against Facebook in January, after the social network agreed to donate £3 million to Citizens Advice in setting up the new scam advert prevention project.

“The UK faces an epidemic of online scam ads – they’re everywhere,” the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com said.

“Yet disgracefully there’s little effective law or regulation to prevent them, and official enforcement is poor to non-existent, as these criminals are usually based outside of the EU.

“That’s why I sued for defamation, bizarrely the only law I could find to try to make big tech firms understand the damage their negligent behaviour has caused.

“Millions of people know a scam when they see it, and millions of others don’t.

“So now, I’d ask all who recognise them to use the new Facebook reporting tool, to help protect those who don’t – which includes many who are vulnerable.

It will also carry out scam prevention work to identify, tackle and raise awareness of online scams in the UK.

“We know online scams affect thousands of people every year,” said Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice.

“We’re pleased the agreement between Martin Lewis and Facebook meant we could set up this dedicated service to give more help to people who have fallen victim to online scams.”

Steve Hatch, vice president for Northern Europe at Facebook, said scam ads are “an industry-wide problem” caused by criminals and have “no place on Facebook”.

“Through our work with Martin Lewis, we’re taking a market leading position and our new reporting tool and dedicated team are important steps to stop the misuse of our platform,” he explained.

“Prevention is also key. Our £3 million donation to Citizens Advice will not only help those who have been impacted by scammers, but raise awareness of how to avoid scams too.

“At a global level we’ve tripled the size of our safety and security team to 30,000 people and continue to invest heavily in removing bad content from our platform.”

 

 

 

 


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