Social media is in the news this week. On Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a plan to place age restrictions on social media. Of course, that won’t be of great concern to most Aussies over 50, those with young children excepted. Unless, that is, ‘Albo’ is planning an upper limit to those age restrictions!
Actually, some people might believe an upper age restriction wouldn’t be such a bad idea. In theory it could protect older Australians who aren’t social media savvy from being scammed.
Notwithstanding that left-field thought, the federal government is in fact making changes it hopes will help protect Aussies from scams. Under proposed new laws Australians will gain greater protection from scammers, with banks being subjected to fines of up to $50 million.
But it won’t just be banks and other financial institutions that will face huge penalties. Mobile networks and social media companies will be subject to the same regulations. Failure to act on scams of which their customers are victims will result in those companies also being liable for huge fines.
Social media scams and older Australians
Aussies were scammed to the tune of $2.74 billion last year, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). As huge as that amount is, it was actually a 13 per cent drop on the 2022 total.
Despite the fall, the ACCC admitted much more was needed to prevent Australians being scammed. The ACCC’s report also highlighted the fact that older Australians were the most likely victims of online scams.
“Older people suffered the greatest harm at the hands of scammers,” the ACCC stated in a media release. “People over the age of 65 were the only age group to experience an increase in reported losses. Losses for people over the age of 65 increased by 13.3 per cent in 2023 to $120 million. All other age groups reported a decrease in losses. People over the age of 65 were disproportionately impacted by investment scams. Many reported significant losses to scams resulting from contact initiated on social media.”
The report also noted a sharp increase in the number of scams perpetrated through text messages. But alert users of social media will have noticed an increase in ‘deep fake’ ads on platforms such as Instagram.
These scams include video footage that appears to feature prominent and respected figures endorsing a particular product or scheme. The videos are created using AI, mimicking the images and voices of those renowned people. Among those who have been ‘deepfaked’ are Elon Musk and Australians Dick Smith, Gina Rinehart and Dr Karl Kruszelnicki.
Labor’s new laws
Under the new Scam Code Act, the ACCC could draft mandatory codes for banks, social media platforms and telecommunication companies. If passed, the act will require them to report scams immediately or face fines of up to $50 million.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones equated the laws with what would be expected if fraudulent advertisements were published in a newspaper. “If Facebook or Instagram or Google or any of the others … are taking advertising money from criminals who are publishing criminal content, whose intent is to rob Australians of their information and money, there’s something very wrong about that,” Mr Jones said.
“You couldn’t do that if you’re a broadcaster in Australia. You couldn’t do that if you’re a newspaper. You would be liable as a newspaper publisher if you were publishing ads, taking money to publish ads with criminal content.”
Mr Jones said he intended to introduce the new laws to Parliament later this year. For vulnerable Australians, especially older ones, they can’t come soon enough.
Have you been targeted by scammers? Did they contact you through social media? Let us know via the comments section below.
Also read: Small banks need to do better on scams, says ASIC
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Fines are a waste of time. These are multi BILLION dollar companies. The only way to hammer home the point and get these companies to conform is to Jail the executives who allow it to happen, and not a slap on the wrist either. Minimum term of five years would do for a start!!
Yes – but only if responsible for supporting and promoting scam sites, yes (eg – Twiggy Forest promoting scam investments).
But NO – if people are silly and gullible enough to click on these posts and continue. Eg – fake love bombers who are always divorced/widowed working in professional jobs overseas, who say you’re the love of his life within 2 weeks. Reporting these fakers to Facebook is useless.
One of the problems with platforms like Facebook is, the Algorithms they use to show you content in your News Feed !
My feed is chockablock full of “Suggested/Sponsored” articles with almost NO posts from my actual Facebook Friends/Groups.
The Scams are buried within those “Suggested/Sponsored” articles, therefore Facebook & Meta are responsible for the spread of these Scams.
Instagram, X etc are the same.