8 ms·

"In one shocking instance, we are aware of a consumer who lost more than $650,000 due to one of these scams being falsely advertised as an investment opportunit

by prawn 5y ago

"In one shocking instance, we are aware of a consumer who lost more than $650,000 due to one of these scams being falsely advertised as an investment opportunity on Facebook." Brutal. I'd be interested to know how much they're relying on "This was reported to Meta and they failed to act" and how much was the expectation that the publisher know which celebrities are endorsing what? Matt Damon is endorsing crypto and almost any crypto promos seem somewhat scammy, so it's not out of the question. Should a publisher know who is or isn't endorsing? I've always wondered how far you could get using lookalikes but no names. Or random people with the same name as a celebrity, but not using a visual likeness.

batch12 5y ago
Even if they don't know the endorsing parties, they should know something about whoever paid for the ad.
- prawn 5y ago
  Sure, but that could be a small agency indistinguishable from a spam operation, and is the expectation that the publisher vet each claim and endorsee? They should be able to address complaints and to prevent repeat attempts to breach this, but is stopping it altogether feasible? I don't use Facebook so maybe they already do this, but it's probably reasonable to require anyone advertising in a country to have a registered business presence within that country. But that's only going to work at scale (AdSense, FB, etc) and not with randoms putting ads on a site that anyone can see.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    > and is the expectation that the publisher vet each claim and endorsee? Maybe yes? If you're paid to artificially promote some content to lots of people, even more so if there's targeting criteria associated (targeting the most vulnerable to fall for such scams) you should share responsibility? In the real world you can't hold a banner "CHEAP DRUGS SOLD HERE" without getting in trouble and I doubt the excuse of "I'm just a platform, not responsible for anything" is going to fly. > is stopping it altogether feasible Yes. Make a human review every single ad and raise the prices if necessary.
    - prawn 5y ago
      Ignoring the targeting aspect for a second, our comments here on HN aren't vetted. If I make a medical claim or a legal claim or a financial claim, @dang doesn't call in a doctor, lawyer or CPA to vet it before it gets live. That would be absolutely cost-prohibitive. And I suspect that vet-before-publish would assign more legal responsibility to the publisher which is partly why this doesn't happen on any major social network or forum. How could a human review an ad with a name, without having contact details for that named individual? Or with a photo if they didn't recognise that person? Or if it was an ad about a person such as a news item? Is there a way with digital keys so that any media claiming endorsement by a person can be signed off? Or requiring an equivalent of talent releases (I get these as photographer/videographer)?
      - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
        To eschew responsibility for the vetting of the advertisement content, there would need to be better vetting, like KYC / AML requirements, for those submitting the ads in order to ensure there's some real person / company at the end of the chain to be brought into court.
        prawn 5y ago
        I can't see how that is possible without blocking countries from the advertising/participation pool. It's the Wild West otherwise. Pointless having a name if your pursuit doesn't have legal teeth.
        BLKNSLVR 5y ago
        How does it work in pre-internet media advertising? > It's the Wild West otherwise. That's the "do nothing" case that we're in now though isn't it? > Pointless having a name if your pursuit doesn't have legal teeth. Can't advertise into country X if you don't have a legal presence in country X. (Simple? Pending the years of legislative navigation, by which time alternatives will have filtered into the ecosystem: decentralisation and non-censorability, etc.). Which is basically what you've said "blocking countries from the advertising/participation pool". So, yes, I think I agree :)
notahacker 5y ago
The ones I've seen (and reported, and sometimes seen again) as paid ads on Facebook are as obviously scammy as a Nigerian prince email. Fake news website with design ripped off real news website, implausible claims and business mogul celebrities whose non-endorsement of crypto is almost famous (fake endorsements so prominent there's mainstream news coverage of scam victims and disavowals of crypto on the celebrities' own websites and Facebook/Meta has even actually settled lawsuits from some of them!) Nobody with the degree of digital literacy required to work for Meta has any excuse for approving many of the ones I've seen, and even the most basic keyword-based version of a spam filter could have caught many of them.
senectus1 5y ago
unfortunately this happens quite a lot. I've seen it 1st hand (in my employment for someone that was being impersonated). Even though I've seen it 1st hand quite a lot, it still astounds me how gullible people can be. People with lots of money, people with little money, people who are comfortable and have no desire to 2x their net wealth... all it takes is a lack of focus, or a brain fart or just a little too much easily placed trust. FB don't give a shit. They just want the advertising $$. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/26/andrew-forrest-hits-back-at-facebook-claim-he-signed-away-his-rights https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/26/andre... This response is complete bullshit as well
- prawn 5y ago
  Presumably Forrest has limited recourse against the advertisers because they're behind shell companies (or similar) in countries with limited legal consequences. As a result, I can't see a solution that doesn't involve countries requiring publishers to filter advertising sources. I'm guessing this sort of thing isn't politically urgent or important so the public is left dealing with the mess. Without an ad blocker, I can't see how you could even start to escape scams getting in your face.
  - senectus1 5y ago
    Make the publisher accountable. which is what he's trying to do.

by prawn 5y ago

batch12 5y ago

Even if they don't know the endorsing parties, they should know something about whoever paid for the ad.

prawn 5y ago
Sure, but that could be a small agency indistinguishable from a spam operation, and is the expectation that the publisher vet each claim and endorsee? They should be able to address complaints and to prevent repeat attempts to breach this, but is stopping it altogether feasible? I don't use Facebook so maybe they already do this, but it's probably reasonable to require anyone advertising in a country to have a registered business presence within that country. But that's only going to work at scale (AdSense, FB, etc) and not with randoms putting ads on a site that anyone can see.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > and is the expectation that the publisher vet each claim and endorsee? Maybe yes? If you're paid to artificially promote some content to lots of people, even more so if there's targeting criteria associated (targeting the most vulnerable to fall for such scams) you should share responsibility? In the real world you can't hold a banner "CHEAP DRUGS SOLD HERE" without getting in trouble and I doubt the excuse of "I'm just a platform, not responsible for anything" is going to fly. > is stopping it altogether feasible Yes. Make a human review every single ad and raise the prices if necessary.
  - prawn 5y ago
    Ignoring the targeting aspect for a second, our comments here on HN aren't vetted. If I make a medical claim or a legal claim or a financial claim, @dang doesn't call in a doctor, lawyer or CPA to vet it before it gets live. That would be absolutely cost-prohibitive. And I suspect that vet-before-publish would assign more legal responsibility to the publisher which is partly why this doesn't happen on any major social network or forum. How could a human review an ad with a name, without having contact details for that named individual? Or with a photo if they didn't recognise that person? Or if it was an ad about a person such as a news item? Is there a way with digital keys so that any media claiming endorsement by a person can be signed off? Or requiring an equivalent of talent releases (I get these as photographer/videographer)?
    - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
      To eschew responsibility for the vetting of the advertisement content, there would need to be better vetting, like KYC / AML requirements, for those submitting the ads in order to ensure there's some real person / company at the end of the chain to be brought into court.
      - prawn 5y ago
        I can't see how that is possible without blocking countries from the advertising/participation pool. It's the Wild West otherwise. Pointless having a name if your pursuit doesn't have legal teeth.
        BLKNSLVR 5y ago
        How does it work in pre-internet media advertising? > It's the Wild West otherwise. That's the "do nothing" case that we're in now though isn't it? > Pointless having a name if your pursuit doesn't have legal teeth. Can't advertise into country X if you don't have a legal presence in country X. (Simple? Pending the years of legislative navigation, by which time alternatives will have filtered into the ecosystem: decentralisation and non-censorability, etc.). Which is basically what you've said "blocking countries from the advertising/participation pool". So, yes, I think I agree :)

notahacker 5y ago

The ones I've seen (and reported, and sometimes seen again) as paid ads on Facebook are as obviously scammy as a Nigerian prince email. Fake news website with design ripped off real news website, implausible claims and business mogul celebrities whose non-endorsement of crypto is almost famous (fake endorsements so prominent there's mainstream news coverage of scam victims and disavowals of crypto on the celebrities' own websites and Facebook/Meta has even actually settled lawsuits from some of them!) Nobody with the degree of digital literacy required to work for Meta has any excuse for approving many of the ones I've seen, and even the most basic keyword-based version of a spam filter could have caught many of them.

senectus1 5y ago

unfortunately this happens quite a lot. I've seen it 1st hand (in my employment for someone that was being impersonated). Even though I've seen it 1st hand quite a lot, it still astounds me how gullible people can be. People with lots of money, people with little money, people who are comfortable and have no desire to 2x their net wealth... all it takes is a lack of focus, or a brain fart or just a little too much easily placed trust. FB don't give a shit. They just want the advertising $$. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/26/andrew-forrest-hits-back-at-facebook-claim-he-signed-away-his-rights https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/26/andre... This response is complete bullshit as well

prawn 5y ago
Presumably Forrest has limited recourse against the advertisers because they're behind shell companies (or similar) in countries with limited legal consequences. As a result, I can't see a solution that doesn't involve countries requiring publishers to filter advertising sources. I'm guessing this sort of thing isn't politically urgent or important so the public is left dealing with the mess. Without an ad blocker, I can't see how you could even start to escape scams getting in your face.
- senectus1 5y ago
  Make the publisher accountable. which is what he's trying to do.