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Australians lost $15.9m to social media scams in three months, report says
Consumer group Choice says urgent government action is needed after $15.9m was lost to social media scams in October to December last year, according to a National Anti-Scam Centre quarterly report.
Choice argues that digital platforms should be forced to prevent scam losses. Their senior campaigns and policy advisor, Alex Soderlund, said it was “disappointing” platforms are “refusing to come to the table to stop scammers exploiting their tools”:
From October to December last year, social media scams made up a huge 20% of losses for the quarter. In 2023, social media scam losses stole $95m, a 249% increase since 2020. 76% of 2023’s losses were through Meta-owned companies.
We continue to see an overwhelming number of likely scam ads across Meta and Google-owned services. Big tech companies have a perverse incentive not to act on scams because they generate advertising revenue, so it’s clear that only strong mandatory rules to prevent scams developed and enforced by a regulator will result in any meaningful change for consumers.
According to the report, a majority of the social media scams in 2023 occurred via Whatsapp (47% of losses), Facebook (20%), online dating sites (9%) and Instagram (9%).
During the October to December period, people over 65 experienced the highest losses of any age group at 30% of all social media scam losses – a 57% increase compared to the previous quarter for this age group.
ShareUpdated at 23.57 EDT14m ago23.45 EDTKelly Wilkinson’s estranged husband jailed for life over 2021 murder
Former US Marine Brian Earl Johnston has been sentenced to life in prison, with a non-parole period of 20 years, for the 2021 murder of his estranged wife, Kelly Wilkinson.
The Queensland supreme court heard that Johnston “intended” to kill…
2024-03-12 22:37:46
Post from www.theguardian.com