Australian tycoon sues Facebook for his image in scam ads

Sydney, Australia, Feb 3 (EFE).- Australian mining tycoon Andrew Forrest Thursday said he filed a criminal case against Facebook for allegedly not doing enough to stop his image from being used with scam ads.

The richest man in Australia said the social media giant had violated the Australian money-laundering laws.

In a video released to the media, the CEO of mining group Fortescue Metals said Facebook had been “criminally reckless” since March 2019 and had not stopped the scam advertisements with his image.

“(Facebook) failed to create controls or a corporate culture to prevent its systems being used to commit crime,” Forrest said.

He said his criminal lawsuit was the first in the world that Facebook faces.

He said he publicly asked Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in November 2019 to withdraw the fraud cryptocurrency scheme ads using his image.

The Western Australia Magistrates Court will hold a preliminary hearing on Mar.28 on the claim.

Forrest said he was seeking to defend the interests of all Australians who have been the victims of scams.

“Social media is part of our lives, but it is in the public interest for more to be done to ensure fraud on social media platforms is eliminated or significantly reduced,” said the tycoon.

He said he filed a civil lawsuit against Facebook in the United States.

A spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said the technology giant would not comment on the legal process.

Australian public broadcaster ABC quoted the spokesperson saying that fraudulent advertising violated its policies.

“We do not 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,” the spokesperson said.

“We take a multifaceted approach to stop these ads. We work not just to detect and reject the ads themselves but also block advertisers from our services and, in some cases, take court action to enforce our policies.” EFE

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