The scourge of Facebook

[buksida]

Police sound warning as scams soar
More than 365,000 scam cases have been filed over the past 18 months, with the total damage caused amounting to 45 billion baht, deputy government spokesman Karom Phonphonklang said on Thursday.

He made the remark in response to the cumulative complaint data available on "thaipoliceonline.com". The data, provided by the Royal Thai Police (RTP), runs from March 1 last year to this Sept 30.

The data showed people filed 365,547 scam-related complaints via the police's website. They caused a combined damage of 45.7 billion baht, and 167,347 mule accounts worth 11.25 billion baht have been frozen.

Mr Karom said most complaints related to online shopping fraud, with 100,694 cases causing 1.9 billion baht of damage.

Other popular scams included loan scams (33,517 cases), investment scams (22,740 cases), threatening scams by call centres (20,474 cases), impersonating the identities of others to encourage people to transfer money (9,664 cases), and duping victims into transferring money for a reward (8,697 cases).

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/ge ... scams-soar

The majority of online shopping and 'pig butchering' scams are on Facebook, which gets paid to promote fraudulent activity.

[buksida]

Agency seeks allies to take down scams
The National Cyber Security Agency (NCSA) is seeking an alliance to urge Meta, the parent of Facebook, to implement stronger measures to handle scam advertising on the platform.

AVM Amorn Chomchoey, secretary-general of NCSA, said the agency is in talks with the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) and the Office of the Attorney-General to explore legal avenues to force Meta to better handle ad scams.

"As we're not legal experts, we need an alliance to develop more stringent preventive measures for ad scams, particular on Facebook," said AVM Amorn.

"We are asking the DSI to consider cyberscams as special cases and the Attorney-General's office to consider legal action overseas in the case of Meta."

He cited The Straits Times report from last year that Malaysian authorities planned legal action against Meta after it allegedly failed to remove undesirable content from the social media platform, despite repeated requests.

According to the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau, of the 14 major types of online fraud, investment scams ranked fourth with nearly 30,000 cases and estimated losses of 15.3 billion baht between March 1, 2022 and Nov 10, 2023.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/ge ... down-scams

[buksida]

Canadian school boards sue social media giants
Four of Canada’s largest school boards are seeking more than $4 billion in damages from social media firms such as Facebook owner Meta and Snap in a lawsuit, alleging that their products harm students.

The products are “negligently designed for compulsive use, have rewired the way children think, behave and learn”, a joint statement by the boards said on Thursday.

That has caused learning and mental health crises in students, resulting in the schools having to invest more in support programmes, they said.

Several studies have shown that platforms like Facebook and Instagram can be addictive and their prolonged use can lead to anxiety and depression.

Thirty-three US states last year sued Meta, accusing its products of causing mental health issues among young children and teenagers.

The Canadian lawsuit has also named TikTok, the short-video social media platform from China’s ByteDance.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/27670 ... dia-giants

[Big Boy]

Has anybody else noticed that for a few days now, Facebook has been working at snail's pace? I am continually having to close it down and re-open it. Very annoying.

[joelle]

Works fine for me

[Jack_Batty]

Me too. No problems.

[Big Boy]

OK, just me - thanks guys. Obviously need to dig deeper.

[Big Boy]

Obviously a browser (Chrome) problem. Switched to Edge, and everything running smoothly.

[PeteC]

You should give Firefox and Vivaldi a whirl to see how they perform on your system.

[Big Boy]

I know that I should, and I have other browsers loaded, but I just feel more comfortable using Chrome - probably an age thing. I'm my own worst enemy. I've switched from Chrome several times in the past, but keep drifting back

[PeteC]

I know that I should, and I have other browsers loaded, but I just feel more comfortable using Chrome - probably an age thing. I'm my own worst enemy. I've switched from Chrome several times in the past, but keep drifting back

Don't feel bad. I do the same thing with Firefox, when Vivaldi has so many more capabilities and much faster.