Meta, Facebook’s parent company, launches major legal crackdown on alleged fraudsters ‘using’ deepfakes and celebrity bait

Social media giant Meta has announced they have taken major and “aggressive” legal action against alleged scammers on their platforms, filing multiple lawsuits against scam advertisers all over the world. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram has accused the alleged scammers of misusing the images of public figures, content creators and celebrities to trick people into engaging with fake ads on scam websites. Most commonly, these scam websites entice users to send money or share personal information. “We work aggressively to find and disrupt scams – on and off our platforms. Today, we filed lawsuits against four (alleged) scam advertisers who impersonated well-known celebrities and brands to deceive and defraud people.” Meta said in a statement. The company has filed lawsuits against four alleged scam advertising operations based in Brazil, China and Vietnam. These include cease and desist letters to eight marketing consultants who allegedly helped clients evade Meta’s enforcement systems. No criminal charges have been laid. The move comes as Meta doubles down on efforts to combat the scam epidemic plaguing social media, with the company revealing it now protects the images of more than 500,000 celebrities and public figures worldwide from exploitation in fraudulent ads. “To fight celeb-bait scams, we developed protections for celebrities whose images are repeatedly used in these schemes. This program currently protects the images of more than 500,000 celebrities and public figures around the world,” the company said. Some of the lawsuits allege the scam operators sell dodgy healthcare products using the altered voices of celebrities, while others employ deepfakes to sell products without the approval of regulators. Others are alleged to use celeb-bait advertisements to lure victims into fake investment group. Allegedly, the deceptive advertiser offered users heavily discounted luxury goods from brands purportedly like Longchamp in exchange for surveys. Victims who provided credit card details never received items and were hit with unauthorised recurring charges, which is known as subscription fraud. “Our teams worked closely with Longchamp to investigate and stop this scam on our platforms,” Meta said. “Longchamp has a zero tolerance policy and invests a fair amount of resources in combating illicit activities — such as counterfeiting or fraud using our brand — offline and online. “We are happy that Meta takes action and demonstrates such co-operation.” Maison Longchamp said in the statement. Meta said as part of their action to combat scammers, improve detection and enforcement methods, it will deploy a “multi-layered approach to combating fraud,” and that it is “improving our methods for detecting cloaking, a malicious technique that impairs ad review systems by concealing the true nature of a website linked to an ad.”