Meta Platforms Inc, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has removed 39 scam advertisements from its platform, while Google Taiwan has not removed any, Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Thomas Huang (黃天牧) said yesterday.
Huang told a meeting of the Finance Committee at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei that the commission detected 95 scam advertisements on the two platforms from Monday last week to Monday — 88 on Facebook and seven on Google.
Following a meeting with Meta and Google as well as the National Communications Commission, the Fair Trade Commission and the Ministry of Digital Affairs on March 9, the FSC asked the two platform operators to remove the advertisements to help stop online fraud, Huang said.
Photo: CNA
In the meeting, Meta promised to remove the advertisements in eight to 24 hours of receiving notification from the authorities, while Google said that it would remove them “as soon as possible,” he said.
“Overall, Meta is addressing the scam information more efficiently than Google,” Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Lee Huai-jen (李懷仁) told the committee.
Asked by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) why the government does not curb scam advertisements on the Line messaging application, Lee said that the government plans to adopt a separate mechanism to address misinformation on the app.
As most potentially fraudulent and misleading information on Line is spread by messages rather than advertisements, the government is considering banning accounts directly and has been discussing the viability of doing so with the company and government agencies, he said.
In principle, international companies such as Line are willing to cooperate to stop misleading information, as they do not want to face the high costs of litigation or hurt their brand name, he said.
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