Social media giant Meta was called to order on Wednesday by a coalition of 41 US state prosecutors, who ordered it to act “immediately” to better protect Facebook and Instagram users against hacks. and fraud.
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These prosecutors sent a letter to Meta ordering it “to thoroughly examine its data security system to protect the accounts of its users and to prevent them from being unfairly locked or hijacked by scammers”, according to a press release from the office of New York State Attorney Letitia James, leader of the coalition.
“That Meta fails to properly protect users from scammers who try to hack their accounts, and prevent their owners from using them, is unacceptable,” she said, quoted in the press release, calling on the group to take “common-sense protective measures and dedicate more resources to address this threat.”
According to a spokesperson for the group, Meta invests “heavily in the training of (its) law enforcement and supervision teams”. “We have specialized detection tools to identify compromised accounts and other fraudulent activity,” he added.
“Scammers use every platform at their disposal and constantly adapt to evade controls,” he noted, saying the group “regularly shares tips and tools so people can protect themselves” as well as methods for reporting potential violations.
But, according to the New York prosecutor’s office, hacked users have “difficulty getting help from Meta” and therefore turn to justice.
1,000% increase in complaints
Between 2019 and 2023, the New York prosecutor’s office recorded a 1,000% jump in complaints for misappropriation of Facebook and Instagram accounts, to nearly 800 in total. In January 2024 alone, 128 reports have already been made.
At the end of 2023, complaints jumped over one year by 740% in Vermont, 330% in North Carolina or even 270% in Pennsylvania, the prosecutors wrote in their letter, made public, stressing that this increase had coincided with Meta laying off 11,000 employees in November 2022.
The coalition is demanding from Meta an increase in staff dedicated to managing these reports, a “substantial” increase in funding to counter account theft tactics and new procedures to allow users to protect their accounts themselves.
She also considers that Meta must “take this problem more seriously and must take stricter action against scammers”.
“This is crucial not only to protect your users, but also to reduce the unnecessary burden placed on our office resources to manage this significant number of complaints,” denounces the coalition.
“We refuse to be the after-sales service of your company,” add the prosecutors, inviting Meta representatives to discuss the subject with them “as quickly as possible”.
At the close of the New York Stock Exchange, Meta shares rose 1.20%.
Meta suffered an unusual outage on several of its platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Messenger — on Tuesday, but it ended shortly after hundreds of thousands of users began reporting it.
