Kochie’s had a gutful: ‘I might sue for defamation’

The ex-Sunrise host whose likeness has been exploited by online scammers has grown frustrated with an ACCC action bogged down in the courts – and could pursue his own case against Meta.

David Koch, pictured with wife Libby, says everyday Australians are at risk of falling prey to scams that continue to use his likeness. Picture: Emma Brasier

Former Sunrise host David Koch will consider filing defamation action against Meta for failing to remove scam advertisements that use his likeness.

Koch, billionaire mining magnate Andrew Forrest and entrepreneur Dick Smith are part of an Australian Consumer & Competition Commission legal action against Meta first filed in the Federal Court in 2022.

In it, the ACCC alleges Meta engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct in publishing scam ads; and was aiding and abetting false conduct by the advertisers. But Koch said the ACCC action was “stuck in legal no-man’s land” while everyday Australians kept falling prey to scammers.

“I’m just devastated by what (the scams do to) ordinary people – it’s people’s life savings,” he said. “If (Meta has) algorithms that can pick up the inappropriate posts of customers on a platform, why don’t they have the same algorithms that can also pick up inappropriate advertising and content on their platforms?

“It’s just no excuse to say it’s beyond their capabilities.”

Koch pointed to the case of UK-based personal finance expert and broadcaster Martin Lewis, who in 2019 settled a defamation action he brought against Facebook over its failure to stop scam ads that used his name and image.

The terms of Lewis’ settlement included the provision of a UK-only service that would be incorporated into the social media giant’s platform and would allow users to flag scams to a dedicated internal team. It also included a £3m donation to fund an independent scam prevention project called Citizens Advice Scams Action.

“Lewis got caught up in this and, at first, he went through the government – like what I’m doing with the ACCC – but it was bogged down in so much red tape,” Koch said. “So he took Facebook to court for defamation because of the damage that it was doing to his brand. I’m considering (doing the same).”

Before joining Sunrise, Koch came to prominence as a financial journalist at BRW, as well as Money magazine. Today, he is the economic director at Compare the Market and runs Pinstripe Media – a content creation company producing business information and personal finance material.

Scam ads promoting investment in cryptocurrency or money-making investment schemes using fake endorsements have proliferated on social media.

“These (scammers) are like the new drug cartels,” Koch said. “They’re just here to rip people off financially and it’s boiler rooms in The Philippines or in eastern Europe that’s running them all.

“Surely, the platforms have a responsibility to either give compensation to people who have been ripped off or to stop these ads going on the platform. It is no excuse to say, we don’t have the technology to do it.

“The Facebooks and the Instagrams and the Googles of the world, they are the modern-day new media groups. Why shouldn’t they be regulated and have the same responsibility to protect their customers from being ripped off by ads and practices that the scammers impose on their platform?”