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German court rules Meta liable for scam ads on Facebook and Instagramthenextweb.com

A Frankfurt court ruled Meta liable for scam ads on Facebook and Instagram, saying its algorithms rule out the EU’s hosting defence.

52 points•buzer•8 days ago•9 comments•
#ads#meta#court#scam#instagram#liable#facebook#meta liable

9 comments

Sath528 days ago
Why only Germany?

I feel that all countries should be doing something similar.

kazinator8 days ago
And why only Meta? Google's YouTube is brimming over with scam ads. Google is even more liable because it's not simply providing a platform where the scams are posted as content; it's taking money from the scammers and placing their ads.

Google does so knowingly. People are reporting the ads via the provided workflow and describe the scam. Yet the same scams persist. In spite of being informed about scammy advertisers, Google takes their money.

I would say that Facebook do have a valid point if they say that they are not liable for posted scammy content, even that content manipulates their algorithms in order to reach users. Google do not have any similar such defense.

imawakegnxoxo5 days ago
If meta and google know that you're pregnant before you do, they can't possibly not know the company whose ads they're serving is a scam
7bit8 days ago
Because that's not how any of this works.
compiler-guy8 days ago
Because that's the way courts work. This court only had jurisdiction over Germany. It is possible that other courts with broader jurisdiction would rule similarly, but someone has to bring the case.
buzer8 days ago
GDPR Hub article, contains (machine translated) judgement: https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=LG_Frankfurt_am_Main_-_2-...
NKosmatos8 days ago
From the article: “ The Meta spokesperson also said the company has taken strong action against scam ads, including proactively identifying them and removing reported content.” This is complete crap, I’ve reported countless scam ads and marketplace offers and they haven’t removed a single one. It’s in their interest to continue selling ads (even scam ones), as long as they’re getting money into their pockets. Big companies have stopped caring for their users :-(

Read the full thread on Hacker News →

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