Andrew Forrest takes Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to task over scam advertisements

WA mining magnate Andrew Forrest has slammed Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg over fake advertisements, claiming it was “socially reprehensible recalcitrance”.

The letter dated November 8 and addressed to Mr Zuckerberg came after the billionaire and his family were used as the “subjects of scams” on social media.

“Our images and the images of others are being used to encourage your users to invest in fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes,” Mr Forrest said.

“This is abhorrent and you can stop it. You have the power and the technology to prevent these scam advertisements from running on your platform. Is revenue more important to you than the life savings of elderly people, Mr Zuckerberg?

Mr Forrest told The West Australian in September that social media companies needed to be “more pro-active” to stop scammers.

In March, a picture of Mr Forrest enticed a Bunbury woman to invest in a fake scheme through Facebook that left her $670,000 out of pocket.

The woman made six payments to bank accounts in Australia and Germany and into a credit card account.

The scammers sent the woman a $2700 Louis Vuitton bag as a birthday present and deposited $58,000 in her account to make her feel secure about the investment.

Mr Forrest said he became aware about the “abhorrent” scams at the start of the year and was doing all he could to alert the various social media platforms.

But he wanted social media giants to do more to rid their platforms of the scams.

“We have been engaging with the social media entities at an executive level, in an effort to stop the publication of these scam advertisements and to improve the identification and speed of the reaction to any that are published,” he said.

His letter to Mr Zuckerberg said criminals were continuing to buy advertising space on Facebook, “running new incarnations of the same scams”.

“When I brought these fraudulent advertisements to your leaders’ attention I was told you could not guarantee your tools would prevent or detect them and you rely on users to find and report scams,” it said.

“That’s not good enough. Take responsibility, work harder to recognise these scams and, like every other advertising medium, check the facts before publishing.”