The social media behemoth is facing serious allegations about its cryptocurrency practises.

Facebook has once again found itself at the centre of a controversy.

It's as if the social media behemoth, which changed its name to Meta Platforms (FB) - Get Meta Platforms Inc. Class A Report last October, was struggling to manage its practises.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has decided to sue Meta for allegedly "aiding and abetting" celebrity scam advertisements on Facebook, which have cost some Australians hundreds of thousands of dollars."

In a press release, the regulator claimed that Meta "engaged in false, misleading, or deceptive conduct by publishing scam advertisements featuring prominent Australian public figures."

The ACCC claims that this behaviour violated the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act (ASIC Act).

False Advertisements Associated with Celebrities

It is also claimed that Meta aided and abetted or was knowingly involved in the advertisers' false or misleading conduct and representations.

"The ads, which promoted cryptocurrency investment or money-making schemes, were likely to mislead Facebook users into believing the advertised schemes were associated with well-known people featured in the ads, such as businessman Dick Smith, TV presenter David Koch, and former NSW Premier Mike Baird," the ACCC said.

Including: "The schemes were actually scams, and the people featured in the advertisements had never approved or endorsed them"

The ads, according to the regulator, contained links that directed Facebook users to a fake media article that included quotes attributed to the public figure featured in the ad endorsing a cryptocurrency or money-making scheme.

"Users were then invited to sign up and were contacted by scammers who used high-pressure tactics, such as repeated phone calls, to convince users to deposit funds into the bogus schemes."

"The essence of our case is that Meta is responsible for the advertisements that it publishes on its platform," said ACCC Chair Rod Sims.

"Using Facebook algorithms, it is a critical part of Meta's business to enable advertisers to target users who are most likely to click on a link in an ad and visit the ad's landing page." These ad-generated landing page visits generate significant revenue for Facebook."

"In one shocking case, we are aware of a consumer who lost more than $650,000 as a result of one of these scams being falsely advertised on Facebook as an investment opportunity." "It's a disgrace," Mr Sims said.

Meta is said to have been aware that celebrity endorsement cryptocurrency scam ads were being displayed on Facebook but did not take adequate steps to address the problem. Even after public figures all over the world complained that their names and images had been used in similar ads without their permission, the celebrity endorsement cryptocurrency scam ads were still being displayed on Facebook.

Penalties, costs, and other orders are sought by the regulator.

Meta did not respond when contacted by TheStreet. However, according to other news outlets, Meta has stated that it will defend the proceedings.

Facebook is accused of using a'malicious technique.'

"We don't want ads on Facebook that try to scam people out of money or mislead people – they violate our policies and are bad for our community." We use technology to detect and block scam ads, and we work hard to stay ahead of scammers' attempts to circumvent our detection systems "According to a spokesperson for The Guardian.

"To date, we have cooperated with the ACCC's investigation into this matter."

Between October and December of last year, Meta removed 1.7 billion fake accounts and 1.2 billion pieces of spam content – more than 99.9 percent and 99.6 percent of each were disconnected before they were reported.

In 2020, Mark Zuckerberg's company filed a lawsuit against Basant Gajjar in California.

"Under the alias 'LeadCloak,' Gajjar violated Facebook terms and policies by providing cloaking software and services designed to circumvent automated ad review systems, ultimately running deceptive ads on Facebook and Instagram," Facebook said in April 2020.

Cloaking, according to the company, is a malicious technique that impedes ad review systems by concealing the nature of the website linked to an ad. When ads are cloaked, a company's ad review system may see a website displaying a seemingly innocuous product, such as a sweater, but a user will see a different website promoting deceptive products and services, which are often prohibited.

"Leadcloak's software was used in this case to conceal websites containing scams related to COVID-19, cryptocurrency, pharmaceuticals, diet pills, and fake news pages. Some of these cloaked websites also included celebrity images "In a blog post at the time, Jessica Romero, Facebook's director of platform enforcement and litigation, stated.

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