*

Roughly 8000 celeb-bait scams taken down from Facebook,

Instagram

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Australia plans new anti-scam law with hefty fines for

firms

that don't take action

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Meta is being sued by mining billionaire Forrest over scam

ads

By Byron Kaye

SYDNEY, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Meta said it has

taken down some 8,000 so-called "celeb bait" scam ads from

Facebook and Instagram as part of a new effort with Australian

banks to curb the practice.

The scams use images of famous people, often generated by

artificial intelligence, to trick consumers into giving money to

non-existent investment schemes.

The U.S. social media giant said it took down the scam ads

after receiving 102 reports since April from the Australian

Financial Crimes Exchange, an intelligence-sharing body run by

the country's main banks.

Such scams are a global problem, but Meta is under

heightened pressure to tackle the issue in Australia with Prime

Minister Anthony Albanese's government planning to introduce an

anti-scam law by the end of the year.

The bill proposes A$50 million ($34 million) fines for

social media, financial and telecommunications companies which

fail to meet their obligations to crack down on the practice. A

public consultation closes on Oct. 4.

Australian scam reports jumped by nearly one-fifth in 2023,

with losses totalling A$2.7 billion, according to the Australian

Competition and Consumer Commission.

The commission accused Meta in a 2022 lawsuit of failing to

stop the dissemination of cryptocurrency advertisements that

used images of celebrities like Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe and

Nicole Kidman. It estimated that 58% of cryptocurrency

advertisements on Facebook were possible scams.

Meta is fighting the lawsuit which is yet to go to hearings.

The company is also defending a separate civil lawsuit in

California brought by Australian mining billionaire Andrew

Forrest who accuses Meta of enabling the publication of

thousands of bogus cryptocurrency advertisements on Facebook

displaying his face. Forrest says Australians continue to lose

money to the scams that he began warning Meta about in 2019.

David Agranovich, Meta's director of threat disruption, told

a media briefing that the effort with Australian banks was still

in its early stages.

"What we find promising is that a small amount of high-value

signals can help us identify much wider fraud and scam

activity," he said, referring to indications within ads about

potentially inauthentic content.

Asked about Meta's view on Australia's proposed anti-scam

code, Agranovich said the company was still working through the

draft legislation. "I expect we'll have more to share

specifically on that later," he added.

Rhonda Luo, head of strategy and engagement at the

Australian Financial Crimes Exchange said industry initiatives

"are really important to get ahead of the curve on scams, rather

than wait for regulation to come in and have effect".

($1 = 1.4535 Australian dollars)