Today Represents A Pivot Point For Facebook

Today is the day that Facebook Openly Acted To Protect Scammers on Facebook over the interests of their subscribers.

The UNITED STATES CONGRESS passed the Communications Decency Act (specifically the Section 230) which protected companies like Facebook from liability for things posted by third-parties, such as scammers.

However, on August 5th we have incontrovertible proof that Facebook has acted not only against the best interests of the public and their subscribers, but has also willfully purged information that exposes scammers on Facebook. It did this by removing all data about scammers from our AnyScam Page on Facebook

SCARS has invested considerable time and funds working with its partners to develop an Anti-Scam Data Reporting Network™ which automatically reports reported scammer data directly to Facebook via email, and also posted that data on various pages in Facebook. Facebook not only blocked this reporting but purged all data that originated from our AnyScam entery-point. We believe this was initiated by Facebook themselves.

Facebook willfully purged this information and labeled it “objectionable”, yet fails to respond in 99% of the cases where scammers are reported to them.

We believe this is solid proof that Facebook is more interested in protecting scammers then its own subscribers. In our opinion, and those of thousands of victims, this  means that Facebook has crossed the line from being a bystander to a complicit accessory to these crimes. In effect an accessory after the fact!

We also believe that this removes the protections of the CDA Section 230, since they are now clearly aiding and abetting the scammers by destroying the data that would have allowed the public to have avoided these scammers.

We further believe that this creates an opportunity for victims to be able to demonstrate that Facebook is both negligent and complicit in the crimes perpetrated against them.

The Society openly encourages attorneys for victims of online fraud that originated within Facebook to contact us about using our recent experience as the basis for new litigation opportunities and potential class-actions.

We are, of course, horrified by Facebook’s action in this, and shocked at the willful disregard of the public safety, but as we have seen in other censoring we are not surprised.