The CEO Anne Boden says the company won’t advertise on Facebook or Instagram ‘alongside scammers who are going after the savings of our customers.
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Anne Boden said she has “repeatedly called out” social media giants for allowing financial fraudsters to advertise and post content on their platforms, which results in “people being scammed out of their savings” every day.
Last August, Google decided to stop accepting ads from financial services firms unless they can prove they are authorized by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This is not the case for Meta.
“Promoting financial scams is against our policies and we’re dedicating significant resources to tackling this industry-wide issue on and off our platforms,” says a Meta spokesperson.
“To fight this, we work not just to detect and reject scam ads on our services, but also block advertisers. While no enforcement is perfect, we continue to invest in new technologies and methods to protect people on our service from these scams.”
However, Meta has announced, that it will follow Google’s example.
“This is good news,” said Boden, adding that until something similar takes effect “we’ve stopped all paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram”.
The Starling CEO has also been pressuring the U.K. government to address financial fraud in the Online Safety Bill. This represents a set of legislation that seeks to tackle the spread of harmful content on digital platforms.
The Online Safety Bill would place a duty of care on Big Tech companies such as Meta and Google, requiring them to take action against harmful and illegal material.
