Facebook wants to make it easier for users to report scams. Photo / Financial Times
Facebook wants to make it easier for users to report scams. Photo / Financial Times
Facebook has launched a new tool aimed at shutting down online scams following a lawsuit filed by Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com.
The tool will allow users of Facebook UK to flag advertisements on the social media site that link to scams, often purporting to be get-rich-quick schemes or thesale of little-understood cryptocurrencies. Facebook has also dedicated £3m to anti-scam initiatives run by financial charity, Citizens Advice.
Mr Lewis, who sued Facebook in 2018 after thousands of fake ads appeared on the social media site using his name and image without permission, dropped his suit in January. He settled with Facebook out of court in exchange for commitments from the site to dedicate resources to anti-scam initiatives.
Praising the reporting tool, which he called "social policing", Mr Lewis said: "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."
From Tuesday, all UK Facebook users can flag ads they believe to be scams by clicking the three dots in the top right corner, pressing 'Report ad', then choosing 'Misleading or scam ad' and then 'Send a detailed scam report'.
Once an advertisement is flagged, it alerts a dedicated team who will review and take down offending ads. In partnership with Citizens Advice, Facebook has set up an internal operations team trained to provide individual assistance with victims of online scams.
Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: "This project means we cannot only support people who have been targeted, but also raise awareness of what to look out for to help prevent online scams happening in the first place."
Many Facebook scams involve cryptocurrencies advertisements. Photo / Getty Images
The initiative will raise wider awareness of the threat of financial scams in the UK, including bank fraud, email and messaging scams such as fake invoices, copycat "phishing" websites, and investment scams selling non-existent stocks, shares and rare commodities such as art and wine.
The service expects to help at least 20,000 people in the first year.
The UK's National Crime Agency has estimated that individuals lose around £7 billion (NZ$13.03 billion) to fraud every year, although a large proportion goes unreported as victims are too ashamed or embarrassed. As scam operations grow more sophisticated, they are increasingly difficult for the average consumer to discern.
Critics have argued Facebook should bear greater responsibility for policing its content. Tech companies have commonly argued that they are not publishers but platforms, and thus not responsible for hosted content.
Commenting on the launch of its reporting tool, Facebook said: "Scam ads are an industry-wide problem caused by criminals and have no place on Facebook."
Facebook has been testing the tool on its platform over several months, but would not yet speak to its effectiveness. The company said while the new tool was limited to the UK site, if it was successful in identifying and shutting down scams on its UK platform it could be rolled out to other markets.
Facebook said that the anti-scam initiative was illustrative of Facebook's broader commitment to address harmful content on the platform.
The company added: "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."
Lewis called on other tech companies to follow suit. "The irony is, with these new tools, Facebook should pull ahead of the pack," he said. "Many big tech players don't make it anywhere near as easy for consumers to report scam ads, and they must step up."
