Facebook Faces Legal Fight with Australian Billionaire over Crypto Scam Ads
Meta’s Facebook has filed legal documents in rejection of an action brought by the Australian billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, the nation’s richest man. The latter claims the social media platform should be held liable for “reputation-damaging” crypto scam ads that made use of images of him.
The Guardian reported that Facebook submitted court documents in California last month where its legal team explained that, because Forrest was a Facebook user, he had agreed to the platform’s terms and conditions. And this, the team claimed, absolves the company from liability.
Ads making use of Forrest’s image started appearing on the platform in March 2019.
Forrest hit Facebook with a civil suit in San Mateo, California, USA, with his legal team claiming that Facebook had failed to stop the ads in a “misappropriation of likeness.” The platform had thus “aided and abetted fraud” and had shown a “negligent failure to warn” parties.
Users of Facebook and similar platforms will doubtlessly have seen such ads before – they are typically made up to look like bona fide news stories and feature images of a super-rich celebrity, in addition to claims about the celebrity’s clandestine and lucrative crypto “investments,” often “executed” by “trading bots.”
Forrest’s legal team had claimed he had suffered damage to his reputation, and claimed that Facebook was “not merely a platform” in this case, but actually “the publisher” of the ads. Forrest’s team added that as Facebook actively targets users with ads based on their location and interests, it had facilitated the ads’ exposure in areas where he is active.
But Facebook says its right not to be held liable for such ads are upheld by American law. Facebook’s lawyers claimed protection under
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