By: The Guardian
Date: February 3, 2022
The Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest has launched criminal proceedings against Facebook for failing to take action on scam ads featuring his image. A Guardian investigation into the scam ads sheds light on how the scam works and what the ads look like.
The ads appear on Facebook or on news sites as “programmatic ads” supplied by Google. Programmatic ads target individual users.
These ads use images of celebrities or other well-known people in the regions they are targeting, such as Forrest or Dick Smith in Australia. They are presented as a news story claiming the celebrity has made a “big investment” and the banks are shocked by how well it is doing.