Thailand Threatens To Block Facebook As Scams Persist On The Platform

by Low Boon ShenAugust 24, 2023

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Thailand Threatens To Block Facebook As Scams Persist On The Platform

Image: Anthony Quintano (Flickr)

There’s a good chance you saw fraudulent scam links lurking around Facebook, and they seemingly never goes away no matter how many people has voiced their concerns on the matter. Thailand’s had enough: the country’s Minister of Digital Economy and Society, Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn, has fired a warning shot to Meta demanding action, or risk getting banned.

Associated Press (AP) reported that the minister said Facebook is not putting enough efforts to monitor the ads on the platform, allowing scammers to thrive and cause monetary losses to victims. Despite best efforts from the government to appeal for taking down fraudulent ads – which led to over 5,000 of them blocked – the problems remain. In a statement published on Monday, he said he is ready to go to criminal court by end of this month and have Facebook shut down in the country.

Part of the argument presented by Mr. Thanakamanusorn is that many of these ads masks themselves as reputable financial institutions to offer investment opportunities, touting high rewards – which in turn attracts victims into wiring funds that they most likely couldn’t recover once found out. Meta Thailand has asked for queries to be sent to its press department and opted to not comment further on the minister’s comments.

The social media platform has endured difficult periods recently due to multiple cases of privacy violations in many jurisdictions – including a $1.3bn fine from EU, a $725 million class-action settlement in US, and Norway enforcing bans on personalized ads (that fines $100,000 on a daily basis on noncompliance) has made Meta’s ad business worse than the company would’ve hoped for.

Source: PCMag

Pokdepinion: I for one thank the minister for his effort – the platform has certainly seen better days when it comes to user experience. Perhaps they really should dial back on algorithms, suggested content and ads, among other things.