Facebook lashed by News Digital boss for rising scam ads

Facebook has been urged to take urgent action to stop scam ads that use real news sites to lure people to part with their money.

Julian Delany, Managing Director NewsDNA. Picture: Jay Town

Facebook has been urged to take urgent action against a rising tide of scam ads that use real news sites to lure unwitting consumers to part with their money, amid concerns the company is dragging its feet when it comes to a code of conduct on fake news.

Since September last year Australia’s leading news site, news.com.au has reported an increasing number of malicious ads on the social platform that use the news.com.au brand to promote fake articles that direct users to the online scams.

News Digital Networks Australia (News DNA) managing director Julian Delany said the publisher, owned by News Corp Australia, which also publishes The Australian, had reported the fake ads to the tech giant since September with “little success” and that Facebooks’s assurances it had taken action against the scammers rang hollow.

“It is hugely damaging to our brands and to the distribution of quality, trusted news to the Australian public,” Mr Delany said.

“Unfortunately, the onus is on the publisher to identify the ads and ask for their removal rather than the platform taking responsibility to prevent scam accounts in the first place.”

The fake ads typically use ­celebrities and other high-profile personalities such as former NSW premier Mike Baird and media personality Waleed Aly, while more recent versions feature TV vet Chris Brown and comedian Celeste Barber.

Mr Delany said readers had raised the alarm about hundreds of fake ads across Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Facebook’s Audience network and Instagram.

“Despite Facebook’s assurances, the reality is the scams are ramping up,” he said. “We’re seeing new ­accounts set up daily that can run upwards of 10 ads at a time. Our readers are as frustrated and disappointed as we are that the social platform is not doing more to act in their best interests by providing a safe environment for users to discover and consume content. Presumably, Facebook is earning advertising revenue from the practice. We urge Facebook to take some responsibility for the distribution of fake news on its platforms.”

A Facebook spokeswoman said the company did not allow scams on its services and took swift action to remove them as soon as it became aware of them.

“Scammers often use sophisticated cloaking technology to mask content so that it shows different versions to our ad review systems than it does to people. This is a clear violation of our policies as ads must not use tactics intended to circumvent our ad review process or other enforcement systems,” the spokeswoman said. “This is an adversarial issue, and not unique to Facebook. However, we’re making significant investments in scaled detection technology to prevent these scams. We now have more than 35,000 people working on safety and security.”