Starling’s CEO company announced it will quit purchasing ads on Instagram and Facebook; its ads are “across criminals who are coming after our clients’ and other banks’ funds.”
Companies are Fighting Back
According to Business Insider, the CEO of a British finance company is shunning Facebook and Instagram’s ad networks, owing to an inflow of scammers on the site.
In her most recent annual letter to stakeholders and clients, Anne Boden, the CEO of the online Starling Bank, announced plans to shun Facebook and Instagram.
“We would like to defend our consumers and our brand credibility,” Boden said. “We can no longer afford to promote on a platform with crooks attempting to steal our clients’ and other banks’ funds.”
Boden went on to say she has “constantly called out the large digital and social media corporations” for enabling scammers to use their platforms.
Starling was created in 2014 and presently has over 2.5 million registered users. Boden also chastised Facebook (now known as Meta) for focusing so much on its new technologies and online metaverse, rather than addressing current platform issues in the letter.
facebook: “every user can EASILY control their privacy”
also facebook: pic.twitter.com/9OsaHM20Ma
— (+) Add another Tweet (@eugenekudashev) January 10, 2022
“While Facebook (Meta) can hold up all kinds of future possibilities, I truly hope its concentration on the Metaverse hasn’t become a diversion from doing what’s right now and in the United Kingdom of 2022,” Boden said.
Workers at Facebook came forward during December 2020, claiming the business ignores fraud ads on the network as long as they are lucrative.
Facebook Ignores Scammers
According to multiple employees, Facebook ignores many ads that put users in danger, such as sharing enticing photographs of young girls with middle-aged males or marketing scams to users.
According to BuzzFeed News, Facebook subcontractors appear to be ignoring big red flags, writing that some subcontractors have been instructed to disregard wider patterns of fraud and compromised accounts if they cost Facebook cash.
“It’s startling to me when I realize an account has been compromised and I’m advised to turn the other way,” a source familiar with ad enforcement stated.
Finally the EU is fining Big Tech for violating privacy rights:
✅ WhatsApp received a $270 million fine
✅ Google received a €150 million fine
✅ Facebook received a €60 million in fine #PrivacyMatters #GDPR
If you want to make a change, switch now! https://t.co/ubRzm6Wp2S 😊 pic.twitter.com/HfSejL91jl— Tutanota (@TutanotaTeam) January 10, 2022
Internal emails obtained by BuzzFeed News reveal an Accenture manager leading a team of 45 ad analyzers, encouraging contract workers to disregard stolen identities and other infractions.
This is the expectation as long as “Facebook gets paid” for advertisements via a valid payment channel.
Contractors were directed to allow a hacker to run advertising even if they’d taken over a user’s name, as long as the form of payment for ads was legitimate.
“Facebook does not suffer any leakage if they are using their own cash and not connecting any other cards that do not pertain to them,” the administrator wrote in July of that year.
Credit/debit card chargebacks or other events that force Facebook to reimburse money are referred to as “leakage.”
