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The scam ads Mr Forrest is railing against are against Facebook's advertising guidelines. However, the social media company, and others, including Google and Twitter, have found it difficult to stamp out scam ads as the fraudulent actors continue to adapt their methods and technology each time the companies try to stop them.

A Facebook spokeswoman said the social media giant was investing in a scaled technology to prevent these types of scams.

"We now have more than 35,000 people working on safety and security, and our security budget today is greater than the entire revenue of our company at the time of our IPO," she said.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.Bloomberg

"We take action to ensure the integrity of our site. This means not just suspending and deleting accounts, pages, and ads, but considering taking further legal action in certain instances against those responsible for violating our rules."

The spokeswoman said Facebook had built detection models specifically for what it calls "celeb-bait", where it takes on what it is learning about the change tactics of groups using the scam ads.

We do not allow these scams on our services and we take swift action to remove them as soon as we become aware. These scammers use sophisticated cloaking technology to mask content so that it shows different versions to our ad review systems than it does to people," she said.

"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."

Mr Forrest said Facebook and other companies were not doing enough to combat scams and they needed to be held to the same standards as advertisements that would run in a newspaper or on a radio network or TV station.

"Weve seen these huge social media companies excavate trust because people like the lady who got scammed out of her entire life savings trust the fact that the institution is big, therefore they must come under the principles of proper governance, that theyre using Andrew Forrests face and name, then surely they must have his permission, they must be following all the proper regulations," he said.

As part of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's Digital Platforms Inquiry, the competition watchdog has recommended a new ombudsman to help people resolve complaints with the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter over a number of issues, including fraudulent advertising.

ACCC boss Rod Sims.AFR

The inquiry found the number of scams on social media reported to the ACCC between 2014 and 2018 surged by 188 per cent, and losses incurred by people being defrauded had jumped 165 per cent.

The ACCC highlighted the example of the week of May 6, 2019, when its Scamwatch received 165 reports where Facebook was mentioned with estimated losses of $70,000.

Its report says: "These scams occur in a number of different ways, including advertising displayed on Google or Facebook, or on websites that are part of Googles or Facebooks advertising networks, that contain false representations and scam content.

"This is damaging for businesses that inadvertently display these advertisements, and for consumers who fall victim to these scams and suffer both financial and non-financial loss."

Seven West Media chairman Kerry Stokes this month told reporters he had spoken to Mr Forrest about the scam ads using his image.

"If you did that in your newspaper, or if I did that in our newspaper, or if we did that on television, wed be in court ... misleading conduct and everything. But, here they are, running these ads on these platforms, taking advantage of people who should not be taken advantage of," Mr Stokes said.

"If that was an Australian company, that just wouldnt happen. If I did that at Seven, youd have your headlines across all the papers saying what scumbags we were. That doesnt happen with them."

Go here to see the original:
Forrest urges government to treat tech giants as publishers - The Australian Financial Review