Social media platforms ‘must refund victims’ who have been defrauded

Social media companies have failed to do enough to stop fraudsters and must “refund the British public for any scam”, the chairman of an influential Commons committee has said.

In a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee hearing, Julian Knight Conservative MP for Solihull and chairman of the committee, branded the social media platforms a “disgrace” and said they had been making money from scams “for too many years”.

Speaking to Richard Earley, UK public policy manager for Facebook owner Meta Mr Knight said: “It seems incredible to me and to the public, the idea that you are systematically, over a period of years, making money from our constituents’ misery over being defrauded.

“You are making money off that and you are continuing to make money, and you’re still waiting for legislation to come forward before you appropriately react in order to exclude these scams from your platforms permanently.”

Mr Earley defended Meta’s review process, which he said checks over any advertisement to ensure it is in line with their compliance and advertisement policies.

However, despite announcing last year that it would do so, Meta’s review process does not currently enforce that all advertisements are authorised by the FCA.

The MP criticised the companies for not sharing data with each other regarding scams, calling it a “disgrace” that “has been going on far too long”.