There is a deluge of financial scams across all Meta platforms but also Twitter. A centralized platform have all the right to moderate content, but they must also be liable for obvious scams.
Either you are an open messenger like the postal service or an ISP. Or you own the platform. You cannot have it both ways.
I never understood why they all get away with doing nothing. Meta's own investigation showed 10%+ of all revenue is from outright scams, and all they do is charge the scammers a premium.
I have reported scams myself and have been completely stonewalled just like everyone else. They obviously earn a lot of money by looking the other way. That can't possibly be legal in any jurisdiction. Let's hope the Swedish justice system takes this seriously and sets an example for others.
This should be just the begging as Social Media companies will not be able to just declare themselves over the law on fraud claims.
Making these ad companies liable for the scams they allow (even take a premium for running them) seems like the only way forward.
My (swedish) grandfather keeps falling for these Meta scams. Scrolling through his feed is insane and disgusting. So many ads that mimick OS alerts saying storage is low, insane amounts of AI crap and fake products. I 100% agree with this. Try scrolling through your grandparents’ Instagram or Facebook and see for yourself. It’s obviously _very_ easy for Meta to filter out these scams, but they choose not to.
Lord Zuckerberg is above the law everywhere in the world! 100% guarantee nothing will come of this.
I am not familiar with the legal system in Sweden, but it seems odd that it would be a police report instead of a lawsuit.
Fraud is a crime. When a crime is committed citizens inform the police to investigate.
If someone punches you in the street or steals your wallet will you file a lawsuit or call the police? Maybe in America is different, but the normal thing to do is to go to the police. Fraud is not different, the police will investigate.
> If someone punches you in the street or steals your wallet will you file a lawsuit or call the police?
In the USA, probably both. You (or your insurance company) might sue them to recover your financial losses, the police would investigate the crime of assault and/or robbery and pass any evidence along to the prosecutor.
Of course if they have no money or other assets, suing them is a bit pointless.
In the US, you might wait for criminal action if it was progressing to initiate civil action because (1) a criminal conviction can be used as evidence (and it is asymmetrical, because an actual doesn't have the same weight), and (2) criminal process can result in a restitution order which makes civil action unnecessary (and in some jurisdictions may allow recovery from a dedicated fund for victims of crime even if no recovery is possible from the perpetrator, and in that sense may be better than winning a civil action), and (3) criminal prosecution doesn't cost the victim money, civil prosecution generally does.
Yeah point 3 is why you generally don’t bother with civil claims unless they actually have the means to pay.
In the US you can do both (and often that's what happens - parallel criminal and civil cases)
US legal system is kinda weird
Fraud is usually a crime and therefore a matter for the police, even in the US.
I know nothing about Swedish law, but in the US, there can be both civil and criminal fraud. They might be planning to file a lawsuit also.
I think fraud is always a crime? Something like breach of contract would be a civil matter, as that’s probably not fraud just a disagreement.
It means the legal system is investigating the matter and the public prosecutor may or may not decide to file charges. The publishers might have filed a lawsuit themselves, but that is very expensive so they hope the legal system will do it for them. My guess is that the investigation will be closed because I don't think Swedish authorities think they have jurisdiction over Facebook. Unless Meta happens to have offices in Sweden, which I don't think they have. In general they can only prosecute crimes committed in Sweden or committed by Swedes.
The investigation maybe will be closed, but not for that reason. Fraudulent ads that are paid for and then shown on Swedish news sites makes money change hands in Sweden. Even though the fraudsters are abroad, Meta makes business with the media in Sweden that displays the ads. Jurisdiction will not be a problem
[deleted]
> Unless Meta happens to have offices in Sweden, which I don't think they have
Meta operates one of their european datacenters out of Luleå in Sweden.
Related:
Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads
In Sweden, you can charge someone/something two ways.
Either you and a company has a disagreement and you sue one or the other and it goes to court.
But in this case, ”Utgivarna” which are basically a company/org that represents a lot of media outlets, basically went to the police instead and said ”hey, we think that meta is breaking the Swedish law”.
What the police does is that they then investigate and then finds out who is responsible for the company (Mr. Zuck) and then eventually will indict him. Since its Meta that is breaking the law and The Zuck is the one in charge of Meta.
I don’t think there’s a story here, it’s a police report, not even a lawsuit.
There’s no skin in the game required when filing a police report.
I'm pretty sure the publishers are alleging that a crime has been committed. In that case, private parties can't open a suit (at least if Swedish criminal law is at all similar to Norwegian law), so this asks the police to open a criminal investigation into the matter. What happens next in the Norwegian system at least is that the police will conduct their investigation, and at some point when the police consider their investigations complete the prosecutor's office will decide what to do next. Next steps can be concluding that no crime has occured, to ask the police to investigate further, that a crime has been committed but the evidence are insufficient for a trial, or that someone should be tried.
It's not going to be a lawsuit. You don't sue companies for breaking the law in Sweden. It's going to be a criminal case if police deem so.
There is a deluge of financial scams across all Meta platforms but also Twitter. A centralized platform have all the right to moderate content, but they must also be liable for obvious scams.
Either you are an open messenger like the postal service or an ISP. Or you own the platform. You cannot have it both ways.
I never understood why they all get away with doing nothing. Meta's own investigation showed 10%+ of all revenue is from outright scams, and all they do is charge the scammers a premium.
I have reported scams myself and have been completely stonewalled just like everyone else. They obviously earn a lot of money by looking the other way. That can't possibly be legal in any jurisdiction. Let's hope the Swedish justice system takes this seriously and sets an example for others.
This should be just the begging as Social Media companies will not be able to just declare themselves over the law on fraud claims.
Related:
- "Social media giants liable for financial scams under new EU law " https://www.politico.eu/article/social-media-giants-meta-tik...
- "Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show" https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...
Making these ad companies liable for the scams they allow (even take a premium for running them) seems like the only way forward.
My (swedish) grandfather keeps falling for these Meta scams. Scrolling through his feed is insane and disgusting. So many ads that mimick OS alerts saying storage is low, insane amounts of AI crap and fake products. I 100% agree with this. Try scrolling through your grandparents’ Instagram or Facebook and see for yourself. It’s obviously _very_ easy for Meta to filter out these scams, but they choose not to.
Lord Zuckerberg is above the law everywhere in the world! 100% guarantee nothing will come of this.
I am not familiar with the legal system in Sweden, but it seems odd that it would be a police report instead of a lawsuit.
Fraud is a crime. When a crime is committed citizens inform the police to investigate.
If someone punches you in the street or steals your wallet will you file a lawsuit or call the police? Maybe in America is different, but the normal thing to do is to go to the police. Fraud is not different, the police will investigate.
> If someone punches you in the street or steals your wallet will you file a lawsuit or call the police?
In the USA, probably both. You (or your insurance company) might sue them to recover your financial losses, the police would investigate the crime of assault and/or robbery and pass any evidence along to the prosecutor.
Of course if they have no money or other assets, suing them is a bit pointless.
In the US, you might wait for criminal action if it was progressing to initiate civil action because (1) a criminal conviction can be used as evidence (and it is asymmetrical, because an actual doesn't have the same weight), and (2) criminal process can result in a restitution order which makes civil action unnecessary (and in some jurisdictions may allow recovery from a dedicated fund for victims of crime even if no recovery is possible from the perpetrator, and in that sense may be better than winning a civil action), and (3) criminal prosecution doesn't cost the victim money, civil prosecution generally does.
Yeah point 3 is why you generally don’t bother with civil claims unless they actually have the means to pay.
In the US you can do both (and often that's what happens - parallel criminal and civil cases)
US legal system is kinda weird
Fraud is usually a crime and therefore a matter for the police, even in the US.
I know nothing about Swedish law, but in the US, there can be both civil and criminal fraud. They might be planning to file a lawsuit also.
I think fraud is always a crime? Something like breach of contract would be a civil matter, as that’s probably not fraud just a disagreement.
It means the legal system is investigating the matter and the public prosecutor may or may not decide to file charges. The publishers might have filed a lawsuit themselves, but that is very expensive so they hope the legal system will do it for them. My guess is that the investigation will be closed because I don't think Swedish authorities think they have jurisdiction over Facebook. Unless Meta happens to have offices in Sweden, which I don't think they have. In general they can only prosecute crimes committed in Sweden or committed by Swedes.
The investigation maybe will be closed, but not for that reason. Fraudulent ads that are paid for and then shown on Swedish news sites makes money change hands in Sweden. Even though the fraudsters are abroad, Meta makes business with the media in Sweden that displays the ads. Jurisdiction will not be a problem
> Unless Meta happens to have offices in Sweden, which I don't think they have
Meta operates one of their european datacenters out of Luleå in Sweden.
Related:
Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45834840
Interesting that he's named personally. Can any Swedish person explain whether this is the normal process?
Isn't that ultimately there's people responsible for a company's actions the reason why Mr Burns has a canary that actually owns his company?
https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Canary_M._Burns
In Sweden, you can charge someone/something two ways.
Either you and a company has a disagreement and you sue one or the other and it goes to court.
But in this case, ”Utgivarna” which are basically a company/org that represents a lot of media outlets, basically went to the police instead and said ”hey, we think that meta is breaking the Swedish law”.
What the police does is that they then investigate and then finds out who is responsible for the company (Mr. Zuck) and then eventually will indict him. Since its Meta that is breaking the law and The Zuck is the one in charge of Meta.
I don’t think there’s a story here, it’s a police report, not even a lawsuit.
There’s no skin in the game required when filing a police report.
I'm pretty sure the publishers are alleging that a crime has been committed. In that case, private parties can't open a suit (at least if Swedish criminal law is at all similar to Norwegian law), so this asks the police to open a criminal investigation into the matter. What happens next in the Norwegian system at least is that the police will conduct their investigation, and at some point when the police consider their investigations complete the prosecutor's office will decide what to do next. Next steps can be concluding that no crime has occured, to ask the police to investigate further, that a crime has been committed but the evidence are insufficient for a trial, or that someone should be tried.
It's not going to be a lawsuit. You don't sue companies for breaking the law in Sweden. It's going to be a criminal case if police deem so.