Mining magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest has launched legal action against social media giant Facebook, alleging the company breached anti-money laundering laws by failing to prevent a series of scam crypto ads using his name and image.
The billionaire Fortescue Metals Group chairman had repeatedly asked Facebook to better monitor the platform after people fell for the scam ads, which appear as “sponsored posts” and include details of Dr Forrest’s “investment strategy”.
He will now be bringing criminal charges against Facebook for the first time in the Western Australia magistrates court after seeking approval from the attorney-general to launch the action under the commonwealth criminal code, Dr Forrest said in a statement.
“This action is being taken on behalf of those everyday Australians – mums and dads, grans and grandads – who work all their lives to gather their savings and to ensure those savings aren’t swindled away by scammers,” he said.
“I’m acting here for Australians, but this is happening all over the world.”
The clickbait ads, a number of which allege Dr Forrest secretly made his $27bn fortune via cryptocurrency trading, have irked him since March 2019 prompting him to publicly appeal to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to stop them.
Other variations of the scam feature the likes of actor Chris Hemsworth, media personality David Koch, ex-NSW premier Mike Baird and businessman Dick Smith.
He alleges the social media giant was “criminally reckless” by not taking steps to stop criminals from using Facebook to send the advertisements which aimed to defraud Australians.
Dr Forrest also alleges Facebook failed to create controls that would prevent its systems from being used to commit alleged crimes.
The mining magnate said he wanted the social media giant to use its resources to do more to protect vulnerable people targeted by criminal syndicates.
“I’m doing this on behalf of innocent Australians who don’t have the resources to take on companies like Facebook … The same people who are being scammed and many of whom have seen me falsely featured on Facebook advertisements,” he said.
“I want social media companies to use more of their vast resources and billions of dollars in annual revenue to protect vulnerable people who are targeted and fall victim to these scams.
“Social media is part of our lives, but I want more to be done to ensure fraud on social media platforms is eliminated or significantly reduced.”
A spokesman for Meta, the new name for Facebook’s corporate parent, said scam ads had been banned from Facebook.
“We take a multifaceted approach to stop these ads, we work not just to detect and reject the ads themselves but also block advertisers from our services and, in some cases, take court action to enforce our policies,” the spokesman said.
“We’re committed to keeping these people off our platform.”
The three charges against Facebook will first be heard in an initial hearing in the WA Magistrates Court on March 28.
