The CEO of digital bank Starling said that the company will stop buying ads on Facebook and Instagram, which places its ads “alongside scammers who are going after the savings of our customers and those of other banks.”
Business Insider reports that the CEO of a British fintech firm is boycotting Facebook and Instagram’s advertising platforms due to what she claims is an influx of scammers on the site. Anne Boden, the CEO of the digital Starling Bank, revealed plans to boycott Facebook and Instagram in her latest annual letter to customers and shareholders.
Mark Zuckerberg introduces Meta (Facebook)
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Boden stated: “We want to protect our customers and our brand integrity. And we can no longer pay to advertise on a platform alongside scammers who are going after the savings of our customers and those of other banks.” Boden added that she has “repeatedly called out the big tech and social media giants” for allowing scammers to operate on their platforms.
Starling was founded in 2014 and now has more than 2.5 million customer accounts. In the letter, Boden further called out Facebook (now called Meta) for putting so much focus on its new technology and digital metaverse instead of dealing with issues on its platform currently.
“While Facebook (Meta) may hold out all sorts of promises for the future, I really hope its focus on the Metaverse doesn’t become a distraction from doing what is right today, here and now in the UK of 2022,” Boden stated.
In December 2020, Facebook employees came forward stating that they believe the company ignores scam ads on the platform as long as they’re profitable.
Breitbart News wrote at the time:
Multiple employees claim that Facebook turns a blind eye to many ads that place users at risk, whether it be sharing provocative images of young girls with middle-aged men or advertising scams to users. BuzzFeed News notes that Facebook contractors appear to ignore major red flags, writing:
Meanwhile, contractors on some teams have been told to ignore larger patterns of fraud and hacked accounts — unless they cost Facebook money. “When I can see an account has been hacked and I’m told to look the other way, it’s really shocking to me,” said a source with knowledge of ads enforcement.
Internal messages seen by BuzzFeed News show an Accenture manager who led a team of 45 ads analysts instructing contract workers to ignore hacked accounts and other violations as long as “Facebook gets paid” for ads through a valid payment method. Even if a hacker has taken over a person’s account, contractors were told to allow the hacker to place ads, as long the payment method for ads was valid.
“If they are spending their own money and not adding any foreign cards that don’t belong to them, then Facebook doesn’t experience any leakage,” the manager wrote in July of last year. Leakage refers to credit card chargebacks or other scenarios that result in Facebook having to refund the money.
Read more at Business Insider here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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