On Thursday, four people sued the Japanese subsidiary of U.S. tech giant Metaplatforms over false investment advertisements that used fake celebrity endorsements on Facebook and Instagram.
Plaintiffs from the cities of Kobe and Tokyo filed suit in the Kobe District Court, alleging that the company had suffered losses due to its failure to verify the legitimacy of these advertisements. They are seeking a total of 23 million yen in damages.
Social media scams that use the names and images of prominent business figures to solicit investment have become a nationwide problem in recent years, and according to the National Police Agency, the amount of fraud damage will be approximately 27.8 billion in 2023 alone. It is said to rise to a circle.
A sign posted in front of Meta's headquarters in Menio Park, California, taken on February 2, 2022. (Getty/Kyodo News)
The four plaintiffs viewed fake advertisements on Facebook and Instagram and sent money to designated bank accounts under false pretense that they were investing in foreign exchange margin trading.
These ads falsely imply endorsements by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, founder of online fashion retailer ZOZO, and Internet entrepreneur Hiroyuki Nishimura, founder of the popular bulletin board 2channel. Ta.
The plaintiffs alleged that the company ran false advertisements to generate advertising revenue while failing to evaluate potential harm to customers and to verify the authenticity of advertising content.
Meta, formerly Facebook Inc., founded by Mark Zuckerberg, is one of the major technology companies along with Google Inc., Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Inc.
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