Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. is being sued by Australia\u2019s competition watchdog, which alleges the social-media giant misled users by publishing scam advertisements featuring unwitting local celebrities.<\/p>\n
The ads promoted cryptocurrency investments and linked to fake media articles that endorsed the schemes, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission\u00a0said<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0Friday.<\/p>\n Facebook users probably believed the promotions were associated with the famous people in the ads, who included businessman Dick Smith and television presenter David Koch, even though they had never approved them, the watchdog said.<\/p>\n Meta, which also owns Instagram, \u201cengaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct,\u201d the ACCC said.<\/p>\n The firm\u2019s technology enabled these ads to be targeted at the most susceptible users, the watchdog said. One individual lost more than A$650,000 ($480,000), according to the statement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe essence of our case is that Meta is responsible for these ads that it publishes on its platform,\u201d ACCC Chair Rod Sims said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is alleged that Meta was aware that the celebrity endorsement cryptocurrency scam ads were being displayed on Facebook, but did not take sufficient steps to address the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want ads seeking to scam people out of money or mislead people on Facebook — they violate our policies and are not good for our community.\u201d a Sydney-based spokeswoman for Meta said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will review the recent filing by the ACCC and intend to defend the proceedings.\u201d<\/p>\n Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. is being sued by Australia\u2019s competition watchdog, which alleges the social-media giant misled users by publishing scam advertisements featuring unwitting local celebrities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":437892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2798,76558,161,73842,21795],"class_list":["post-437890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-australia","tag-crypto-scam","tag-facebook","tag-meta-platforms","tag-online-ads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Now read: Facebook to be prosecuted in South Africa for abusing its dominance<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"