The Richest Man in Australia Sues Facebook Over Crypto Ads

If you use Facebook often you might have encountered a few crypto ads along the way. A lot of users find these ads annoying but an Australian billionaire has found them more than an annoyance as he says that it damages his reputation.

Australian Billionaire, Andrew Forrest is suing Facebook over Crypto Scam Ads

Legal documents have been filed by Meta’s Facebook in response to an action brought by Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, a billionaire and the richest person in Australia. According to the latter, Facebook should be held liable for “reputation-damaging” crypto scam ads that utilized images of him. 

According to The Guardian, Facebook’s legal team submitted court documents in California last month explaining that Forrest had agreed to the terms and conditions of the platform because he was a Facebook user. According to the team, the company is no longer liable for the incident.

In March of this year, ads featuring Forrest’s likeness began to appear on the platform.

With his legal team claiming that Facebook had failed to stop the ads because of “misappropriation of likeness,” Forrest filed a civil suit in San Mateo, California, USA. As a result, the platform “aided and abetted fraud” and demonstrated a “negligent failure to warn” parties.

Ads similar to this have no doubt been seen by Facebook and other social media users before; they typically mimic real news stories and feature images of wealthy celebrities while also making claims about the celebrities’ “secret” and lucrative crypto “investments,” often carried out by automated trading bots.

Forrest’s legal team argued that his reputation had been harmed and that Facebook was “not merely a platform” but rather “the publisher” of the ads in this instance. According to Forrest’s team, the ads were more likely to be seen in areas where he is active because Facebook actively targets users with ads based on their location and interests.

The right of Facebook not to be held liable for these ads is upheld by American law, however, according to Facebook. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, according to Facebook’s legal team, shields the company from lawsuits. Websites can no longer be held liable for the content that appears on their platforms if this clause is omitted.

Section 230 had historically been “uniformly rejected” by American courts, according to Facebook, because Forrest’s claims were “classic types of claims that [have been] found to be pre-empted.”

According to Facebook, Forrest agreed to a section of the company’s terms and conditions when he signed up to create his profile. There are no guarantees that the platform will always be safe, secure, or error-free, according to the section in question.

“Any content” users “share, including offensive, inappropriate, obscene, unlawful and other objectionable content,” Facebook stated in the section.

In California, the case is expected to be decided in April.

While Facebook refused to comment on an ongoing court case, it had previously stated that it was taking a “multifaceted approach to stop crypto scam ads” and was “committed to keeping these people off of our platform,” the same media outlet reported.

Comments all over the internet have multiple opinions on the matter. To quote and summarize some of these comments:

By looking at the advertisements, I know it’s a scam.” If Facebook did the same, we’d never have to see those ads again.”

Another commented about Facebook’s desire for control:

All of your legal and private information is being sought by Facebook.” Cool. It was a pleasure working with you, Facebook!

Conclusion

To conclude these ads are known to use popular figures a lot to promote their content, it is out of Facebook’s control but on the other hand, these ads are damaging to the reputation of the individual that they are using. Whatever the case might be and no matter who you support, it is very disheartening seeing problems arising from these ads.

* We hope this information will help you in your investment process, but this is not investment advice. Every investment carries risk, especially in this industry, so DYOR before making a decision.