Meta has allowed scam investment sites purporting to be run by high-profile journalists to proliferate on Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp despite repeated requests to address the issue.
The US tech giant profits from fraudulent adverts that steal the identities of high-profile individuals to exploit their reputations for honesty and financial expertise.
The fraudulent activity takes place entirely across platforms owned by Meta but the tech giant, which made revenue of $164bn in 2024, appears reluctant to address the issue.
Writing in the FT, Wolf said: “Is it possible that a company like Meta with its huge resources, including artificial intelligence tools, cannot identify and take down such frauds automatically, particularly when informed of their existence? Is it really that hard or are they not trying, as Sarah Wynn-Williams suggests in her excellent book Careless People?”
The UK Online Safety Act is supposed to protect user of social platforms against fraud and is enforced by Ofcom. The FT has raised the issue with the UK Government but was merely directed towards Meta advertising policies which purport to prohibit such misleading activity.
Meta told the FT that the scam adverts are against its policies. It told the title: “Scammers are relentless and continuously evolve their tactics to try to evade detection, which is why we’re constantly developing new ways to make it harder for scammers to deceive others — including using facial recognition technology.”
Press Gazette highlighted similar investment scams to Facebook a month ago which have stolen the identities of high profile figures including CNN journalist Richard Quest, CNBC Fast Money panellist Karen Finerman and Goldman Sacks chief US equity strategist David Kostin.
Since then, scam Facebook sites fronted by Quest and others have returned (after briefly being removed).
And new scam promotions have emerged accompanied by AI-generated videos featuring the likes of Money Saving Expert founder Martin Lewis and business podcaster Steven Bartlett.
Consumer protection site Which? has previously reported that once Facebook users have been duped into joining Whatsapp investment groups, fraudsters will “offer ‘trading advice’ as a way to lure you into larger dodgy schemes”.
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