Meta, Australian banks tout progress on taking down ‘celeb bait’ scam ads

By Byron Kaye

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Meta said it has taken down some 8,000 so-called “celeb bait” scam ads from Facebook (NASDAQ:) and Instagram as part of a new effort with Australian banks to curb the practice.

The scams use images of famous people, often generated by artificial intelligence, to trick consumers into giving money to non-existent investment schemes.

The U.S. social media giant said it took down the scam ads after receiving 102 reports since April from the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange, an intelligence-sharing body run by the country’s main banks.

Such scams are a global problem, but Meta is under heightened pressure to tackle the issue in Australia with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government planning to introduce an anti-scam law by the end of the year.

The bill proposes A$50 million ($34 million) fines for social media, financial and telecommunications companies which fail to meet their obligations to crack down on the practice. A public consultation closes on Oct. 4.

Australian scam reports jumped by nearly one-fifth in 2023, with losses totalling A$2.7 billion, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

The commission accused Meta in a 2022 lawsuit of failing to stop the dissemination of cryptocurrency advertisements that used images of celebrities like Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman. It estimated that 58% of cryptocurrency advertisements on Facebook were possible scams.

Meta is fighting the lawsuit which is yet to go to hearings.

The company is also defending a separate civil lawsuit in California brought by Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest who accuses Meta of enabling the publication of thousands of bogus cryptocurrency advertisements on Facebook displaying his face. Forrest says Australians continue to lose money to the scams that he began warning Meta about in 2019.

David Agranovich, Meta’s director of threat disruption, told a media briefing that the effort with Australian banks was still in its early stages.

“What we find promising is that a small amount of high-value signals can help us identify much wider fraud and scam activity,” he said, referring to indications within ads about potentially inauthentic content.

Asked about Meta’s view on Australia’s proposed anti-scam code, Agranovich said the company was still working through the draft legislation. “I expect we’ll have more to share specifically on that later,” he added.

Rhonda Luo, head of strategy and engagement at the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange said industry initiatives “are really important to get ahead of the curve on scams, rather than wait for regulation to come in and have effect”.

($1 = 1.4535 Australian dollars)