Swedish publishers file police report against Meta's Zuckerberg for fraud
sverigesradio.se
sverigesradio.se
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 revenue is from outright scams, and all they do is charge the scammers a premium.
I have reported scams myself and have been completely stonewalled just like everyone else. They obviously earn a lot of money by looking the other way. That can't possibly be legal in any jurisdiction. Let's hope the Swedish justice system takes this seriously and sets an example for others.
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 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.
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?
Related:
- "Social media giants liable for financial scams under new EU law " https://www.politico.eu/article/social-media-giants-meta-tik...
- "Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show" https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...
Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads
What type of scams are these and why hasn't he become insanely paranoid after the first or second time?
If someone punches you in the street or steals your wallet will you file a lawsuit or call the police? Maybe in America is different, but the normal thing to do is to go to the police. Fraud is not different, the police will investigate.
US legal system is kinda weird
In the USA, probably both. You (or your insurance company) might sue them to recover your financial losses, the police would investigate the crime of assault and/or robbery and pass any evidence along to the prosecutor.
Of course if they have no money or other assets, suing them is a bit pointless.
Meta operates one of their european datacenters out of Luleå in Sweden.
Either you and a company has a disagreement and you sue one or the other and it goes to court.
But in this case, ”Utgivarna” which are basically a company/org that represents a lot of media outlets, basically went to the police instead and said ”hey, we think that meta is breaking the Swedish law”.
What the police does is that they then investigate and then finds out who is responsible for the company (Mr. Zuck) and then eventually will indict him. Since its Meta that is breaking the law and The Zuck is the one in charge of Meta.
There’s no skin in the game required when filing a police report.
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 from seeking compensation through civilian courts.
It’s possible, but tremendously unlikely that Facebook is committing fraud here. In Sweden you have to prove intent to defraud, which is a tremendously high bar.
Which, again, makes the idea that you couldn’t bring a civil suit seem ever more bizarre. How could you possibly know if Facebook has committed fraud here? You presumably can’t read Zuckerbergs toughts.
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".
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).
IANAL, but common sense tells me there should be a link to willful harm.