Meta is facing another lawsuit over scam ads on Facebook and Instagram
Key takeaways
- Matt Gush/Shutterstock Santa Clara County has become the latest entity to sue Meta over scam ads on Facebook and Instagram.
- The lawsuit references a report last year from Reuters that cited internal documents detailing the billions of dollars scam advertisers have poured into Meta's platforms.
- Santa Clara, which is just one county over from Meta's Bay Area headquarters, says it's the first such case brought by a local civil prosecutor.
Matt Gush/Shutterstock Santa Clara County has become the latest entity to sue Meta over scam ads on Facebook and Instagram. The lawsuit, brought by County Counsel Tony Lo Presti, alleges that the company has profited from "a vast ecosystem of scam ads" that have defrauded senior citizens and other vulnerable people.
The lawsuit references a report last year from Reuters that cited internal documents detailing the billions of dollars scam advertisers have poured into Meta's platforms. Meta makes as much as $7 billion a year from such ads, the filing says. It also claims that Meta's own processes and policies have enabled scams.
Santa Clara, which is just one county over from Meta's Bay Area headquarters, says it's the first such case brought by a local civil prosecutor. "While our region has certainly benefited from the tech boom, we can't sit idly by when we know good and well that a tech giant is swindling the public to hit a revenue target," LoPresti said during a press conference.