It's interesting to imagine how the world would be different, if internet advertising giants were partially liable for scams/malware that they facilitate.
I recall a articale I read "somewhere" that reported the Facebook makes big profit (Billions) from scams. So they have no ( or no strong motive) motive to shut such scams down
An example is courtcase against Meta for using a Australians mining billionares likeness to promote a crypo investment scam.
I'm surprised legitimate companies don't pressure Facebook on this though. There are enough scams on Facebook that I now refuse to believe anything there, even though some of the things look useful and probably are not scams (and also are things I didn't know existed without an ad - thus filling one of the legitimate values of advertisements: informing me of things that would make my life better but I don't know exist).
Anyone making a Kickstarter knows that within days if not hours all your images, pictures, renderings will be harvested and dozens of "copycat" sites will be "selling" your product now, regardless of whether its a real thing or not yet, and they'll be advertising it on FB and IG.
I say those words in quotes - they have no intention of shipping you anything, just skimming low-hanging fruit from someone's ideas.
This is why Section 230 is fundamentally wrong. Because the core concept of it assumes reasonable behavior without monetary incentives. Which is great if you're legislating someone's personal forum about their hobby. But Section 230 applied to the ad industry is incredibly, incredibly broken, because advertising companies do not have any incentive to act in good faith.
As soon as a dollar of profit is involved in a content moderation decision, a business should be fully liable for the decisions around content on their platform. If I report an ad to Facebook and Facebook decides to keep it they should be accepting legal responsibility for that ad.
You want to stop scams online, you make the platforms liable and then grant them the ability to recover the losses by going after the advertisers.
Section 230 is fine but people keep misapplying it. It says Facebook didn't publish the ads, the ads publisher did. It doesn't say Facebook doesn't have to take them down. It doesn't say Facebook can't be ordered to reveal who the ad publisher is so they can go to jail.
Your first assertion is obviously untrue. And fake celebrity endorsements pre-date the existence of the Internet, let alone Meta. There were lawsuits back in the 1800s on this topic. This is hardly a new problem unique to Meta.
There's nothing obvious about it. Meta makes money on ads, period. Scams work and get clicks. Therefore, meta makes money on scams running rampant on their platform.
But after that you would get dialed in and stop seeing them.
Google's core mission is to figure out what you are going to buy before you buy it so they can have you click through them to make the purchase.
They generally have negative interest in serving scams/malware ads because people generally don't want to buy those things. On the same token though it's a very hard problem to 100% solve, and the people impacted are usually the lowest value users anyway.
But when they turn off ad-block, to "see what it's like", they are not getting an accurate view. It's usually all crypto and other scammy/vices type ads.
Go look at your mom's browser. Her Google ads are going to be clothes, tissues, and cookware.
Nigerian prince scams cannot outbid Kleenex without breaking the economics of the scam. But they can get loaded when Kleenex no-bids because they don't know who the viewer is.
Trust me, ad-tech is far far beyond 2004 when ad block showed up.
(I'll add that of course there are other less legitimate ad networks, and I'm not counting "snake oil" products, which are essentially scams but customers still swear by them)
Presumably they would only have to show they're doing some simple due diligence. At minimum KYC and a reporting process that works. Neither of which Google et el do currently.
Imagine how world would be different if the actual scammers and malware creators would be prosecuted and not insteead demanded that internet giants play a privatized police force.
Aren't the giants closer to the mob than a police force? I suppose those things are not terribly different in practice, but Google, Facebook, et al make money from leaving the scams on their ad networks.
Either way works - I'd still prefer the scammers to be liable and persecuted for their scamming than demanding that platforms enact censorship and policeing control.
3. Serves the scam to the consumer, ensuring they see it
4. Takes a cut of the action when the scam is successful
5. Tells the scammer how to optimize their campaign
6. Continues working with scammers after they're reported
The scammer has a fairly small part in the overall operation. The platform is doing almost all of the actual work perpetrating the scam. They're not remotely innocent here.
Disney is able to jackboot anyone violating their IP because the DMCA imposes liability on big tech companies if they do not comply with a valid request. The comment you initially replied to proposes imposing such liability for fraud also, which you appear to be adamantly opposed to.
Care to venture some opinions on how "we" could actually prosecute criminals running scam farms in Myanmar? There's always going to be another criminal, and many of them deliberately operate outside the reach of western law.
For what it's worth, I wasn't demanding anything. I was solely pointing out that the platforms aren't neutral here. They're active participants in perpetuating these scams.
Normally, if there is sufficient evidence, both the mob boss and the ground level gangster are liable and criminally responsible for their crimes. You are free to disagree, but I don't see any reason why big tech companies should be completely immune from any and all responsibility for facilitating and taking a cut of the criminal activity taken on their territory.
You are also free to call it censorship, but I am not aware of any jurisdiction where fraud is considered protected speech, so as far as I'm concerned, censor away baby.
An example is courtcase against Meta for using a Australians mining billionares likeness to promote a crypo investment scam.
https://www.afr.com/technology/dad-it-s-a-fraud-call-that-sp...