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Swedish publishers file police report against Meta's Zuckerberg for fraud

sverigesradio.se

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Re: Swedish publishers file police report against Meta's Zuckerberg for fraud

#31

Post by retrac »

gruez wrote: post #28
xorcist wrote: post #17

There is a deluge of financial scams across all Meta platforms but also Twitter. A centralized platform have all the right to moderate content, but they must also be liable for obvious scams. Either you are an open messenger like the postal service or an ISP. Or you own the platform. You cannot have it both ways. I never understood why they all get away with doing nothing. Meta's own investigation showed 10%+ of all…

>Either you are an open messenger like the postal service [...] In what way is the postal service "open"? Sure, anyone can send a letter, but anyone can also create a facebook messenger account. If you want to do business with it (eg. sending bulk mail or delivering international mail), you still need to enter into a commercial agreement.

It's open in the sense that anyone can use it. Without restriction. And there's no way to be banned from it. Since anyone can just drop off an anonymous letter in the post. You don't have to enter a service agreement. Just dump you satchel of letters with stamps on them, in the nearest mail box.

It's not just practically open. It's legally open; at least here in Canada, the federal postal service has a legal obligation, arising from the constitutional right to free speech, to carry any mail that has legal content, regardless of how Canada Post or its employees might feel about it. They're obligated to take those commercial service agreements regardless of content. (This has been a point of contention sometimes with graphic anti-abortion flyers delivered as ad-mail.)

The main means to deal with someone abusing the postal system is the criminal law and court orders.

Re: Swedish publishers file police report against Meta's Zuckerberg for fraud

#32

Post by gruez »

retrac wrote: post #31
gruez wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Either you are an open messenger like the postal service [...] In what way is the postal service "open"? Sure, anyone can send a letter, but anyone can also create a facebook messenger account. If you want to do business with it (eg. sending bulk mail or delivering international mail), you still need to enter into a commercial agreement.

It's open in the sense that anyone can use it. Without restriction. And there's no way to be banned from it. Since anyone can just drop off an anonymous letter in the post. You don't have to enter a service agreement. Just dump you satchel of letters with stamps on them, in the nearest mail box. It's not just practically open. It's legally open; at least here in Canada, the federal postal service has a legal obligati…

>It's open in the sense that anyone can use it. Without restriction. And there's no way to be banned from it. Since anyone can just drop off an anonymous letter in the post. You don't have to enter a service agreement. Just dump you satchel of letters with stamps on them, in the nearest mail box.

1. So this sounds like the section 230 debate all over again? eg. "Facebook can ban people from facebook messenger, so if they're not banning scammers they should be on the hook for it"?

2. What about ISPs? The internet might be open, but ISPs certainly aren't. People get banned for AUP violations or alleged copyright infringement all the time. If ISPs reserve the right to ban users for various ToS violations, should they be on the hook of scammers turned out to be using their connection?

Re: Swedish publishers file police report against Meta's Zuckerberg for fraud

#33

Post by rightbyte »

gruez wrote: post #28
xorcist wrote: post #17

There is a deluge of financial scams across all Meta platforms but also Twitter. A centralized platform have all the right to moderate content, but they must also be liable for obvious scams. Either you are an open messenger like the postal service or an ISP. Or you own the platform. You cannot have it both ways. I never understood why they all get away with doing nothing. Meta's own investigation showed 10%+ of all…

>Either you are an open messenger like the postal service [...] In what way is the postal service "open"? Sure, anyone can send a letter, but anyone can also create a facebook messenger account. If you want to do business with it (eg. sending bulk mail or delivering international mail), you still need to enter into a commercial agreement.

Thinking about it I think I have received one scambait paper mail ever. Dunno why not more. Maybe the stamp makes it not profitable.

Re: Swedish publishers file police report against Meta's Zuckerberg for fraud

#34

Post by ronsor »

rightbyte wrote: post #33
gruez wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Either you are an open messenger like the postal service [...] In what way is the postal service "open"? Sure, anyone can send a letter, but anyone can also create a facebook messenger account. If you want to do business with it (eg. sending bulk mail or delivering international mail), you still need to enter into a commercial agreement.

Thinking about it I think I have received one scambait paper mail ever. Dunno why not more. Maybe the stamp makes it not profitable.

It's because mail fraud carries significant penalties, and the involvement of physical objects makes activity much more traceable.

Re: Swedish publishers file police report against Meta's Zuckerberg for fraud

#35

Post by Braxton1980 »

erikrothoff wrote: post #23

My (swedish) grandfather keeps falling for these Meta scams. Scrolling through his feed is insane and disgusting. So many ads that mimick OS alerts saying storage is low, insane amounts of AI crap and fake products. I 100% agree with this. Try scrolling through your grandparents’ Instagram or Facebook and see for yourself. It’s obviously _very_ easy for Meta to filter out these scams, but they choose not to.

So he was scammed, I'm assuming he knows that he was, but he keeps falling for them?

What type of scams are these and why hasn't he become insanely paranoid after the first or second time?

Re: Swedish publishers file police report against Meta's Zuckerberg for fraud

#36

Post by cromka »

erikrothoff wrote: post #23

My (swedish) grandfather keeps falling for these Meta scams. Scrolling through his feed is insane and disgusting. So many ads that mimick OS alerts saying storage is low, insane amounts of AI crap and fake products. I 100% agree with this. Try scrolling through your grandparents’ Instagram or Facebook and see for yourself. It’s obviously _very_ easy for Meta to filter out these scams, but they choose not to.

Honestly? Just delete his account and say he must have clicked some scam link. Sure its manipulative, but at this point what can you actually do to protect them?

Re: Swedish publishers file police report against Meta's Zuckerberg for fraud

#37

Post by Yiin »

cromka wrote: post #36
erikrothoff wrote: post #23

My (swedish) grandfather keeps falling for these Meta scams. Scrolling through his feed is insane and disgusting. So many ads that mimick OS alerts saying storage is low, insane amounts of AI crap and fake products. I 100% agree with this. Try scrolling through your grandparents’ Instagram or Facebook and see for yourself. It’s obviously _very_ easy for Meta to filter out these scams, but they choose not to.

Honestly? Just delete his account and say he must have clicked some scam link. Sure its manipulative, but at this point what can you actually do to protect them?

install adblocker?

Re: Swedish publishers file police report against Meta's Zuckerberg for fraud

#38

Post by necovek »

walletdrainer wrote: post #30
arnsholt wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the publishers are alleging that a crime has been committed. In that case, private parties can't open a suit (at least if Swedish criminal law is at all similar to Norwegian law), so this asks the police to open a criminal investigation into the matter. What happens next in the Norwegian system at least is that the police will conduct their investigation, and at some point when the police consider the…

Surely you can still sue separately through the civil process even if you choose to not pursue criminal charges? If someone causes you damage through non-criminal negligence, surely you can sue them? The idea that you couldn’t bring a civil suit over possibly criminal conduct seems unworkable. It’s possible that my neighbour was drunk when he crashed into my parked car late at night, but surely that can’t preclude me…

In that particular example (drunk neighbour damaging your property with reckless driving) is really — in most of Europe, I would guess as Serbian laws are largely copied over from different EU country laws — handled by the insurance.

Basically, insurance against damage to others is obligatory for anyone to get the car registered and on the road.

If someone drives an unregistered, uninsured vehicle, a consortium of all insurance companies pay for the damage, and sue the perpetrator in a civil case.

In general, you can argue your level of damage with the insurance company, and can even take them to court.

In Serbia, drunk driving actually precludes the liability of the insurance company too, but they still need to pay out the damages first, and bring a civil case against the driver to get compensated. For that, they need a criminal conviction.

(I've had the unfortune to be hit by a drunk driver, luckily no other harm than to the property as both cars have been totalled, and his insurance argued a lower value for my almost new car)

I am guessing here the "intent" can also be "aware of it but did not invest enough to curb it while it is profiting off it".

Re: Swedish publishers file police report against Meta's Zuckerberg for fraud

#39

Post by walletdrainer »

necovek wrote: post #38
walletdrainer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you can still sue separately through the civil process even if you choose to not pursue criminal charges? If someone causes you damage through non-criminal negligence, surely you can sue them? The idea that you couldn’t bring a civil suit over possibly criminal conduct seems unworkable. It’s possible that my neighbour was drunk when he crashed into my parked car late at night, but surely that can’t preclude me…

In that particular example (drunk neighbour damaging your property with reckless driving) is really — in most of Europe, I would guess as Serbian laws are largely copied over from different EU country laws — handled by the insurance. Basically, insurance against damage to others is obligatory for anyone to get the car registered and on the road. If someone drives an unregistered, uninsured vehicle, a consortium of al…

Yeah, I know how car insurance works and just figured it’d be overly verbose to specify some scenario where the neighbour was driving some uninsured vehicle like a tractor and the incident happened outside of public roads.

I do think I still managed to make my point though, preventing civil lawsuits arising from possibly criminal behaviour is unrealistic. That would make it extremely difficult for individuals to seek compensation for almost any damage they might suffer, they’d have to first wait for months or years before the police gets back to them.

>I am guessing here the "intent" can also be "aware of it but did not invest enough to curb it while it is profiting off it".

Fraud by negligence is a fairly exotic concept and to my understanding usually specifically relies on laws regarding negligent misrepresentation. I’d be surprised if that would work in Sweden.

I did find this government report which is related even if it discusses a slightly different kind of fraud https://bra.se/download/18.3433db6019301deaa6b8132/173142652...

>For liability for fraud to come into question, the prosecutor has to be able to prove that the crime is deliberate. This means that the criminal act has been committed consciously or intentionally. Liability for fraud is conditional on the objective requisites being covered by the perpetrator’s intent. It is not possible to judge a person to be liable for fraud because someone has been paid too much compensation as a result of negligence, or because the person did not know about certain obligations in conjunction with the compensation. Carelessness is thus not sufficient. It must be possible to prove that the perpetrator has committed the act intentionally. This intent must cover all elements of the criminal act. The great problem with fraud crime is to prove the intent. The actual circumstances surrounding what really occurred are often a lesser pro- blem. The assessment of the intent is complicated by the fact that the rules concerning social insurance can be difficult to understand. The difficulty in proving intent has meant that several assessors have considered that the fraud regulations do not work quite as they should. Proposals have therefore been made that negligence should be sufficient for judging that a person has misled the Social Insurance Agency or some other payment-issuer within the compensation and benefit systems (Örnemark Hansen, 1995). This criticism against the intention require- ment has led to the new Benefit Crime Act (2007:612).

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