By Jason Sethre
Publisher
Fillmore County Journal
jason@fillmorecountyjournal.com
This past week, I heard the news that Mark Zuckerberg dropped from the third richest person in the world to sixth, watching his net worth decline by $29.2 billion. As his company Meta (Facebook) pivots resources to artificial intelligence, investors were left unsettled as the stock price tumbled 11%.
While Zuckerberg is keeping an eye on his nest egg, his social media empire has been under fire for knowingly running online ads for scams and banned goods. According to an article published by CNBC.com referencing a report released by Reuters, Meta projected that 10% of its overall sales in 2024, roughly $16 billion, “came from ads for fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos and the sale of banned medical products.”
While a Meta spokesperson said they aggressively address scam ads, it’s pretty hard to believe when I have personally encountered these fraudulent ads on a regular basis.
Every time our company runs a contest giveaway on our Facebook page, a scammer creates an account imitating our brand identity. They begin hijacking our contest post telling every commenter that they won the prize and they should click on their link in order to claim the prize. They ask the person for their credit card information in order to claim the prize. This is not us. We would not ask for credit card information. When we give away prizes, we contact the winner and let them know whether we will mail the prize to them or if they need to pick it up at our office. It’s very frustrating for us and our contest participants. You don’t know what you can trust anymore with social media, and it seems to be getting worse every day.
A few years ago, a friend of mine said his wife ordered something online from an ad she saw on Facebook. She paid by credit card and the scammer on the other end charged a lot more than that single item she intended to purchase. They had to cancel their credit card, because the charges kept coming.
Frankly, I wouldn’t trust buying from an ad on Facebook. When you click on those links, you never know how this may compromise your Smartphone or computer. Facebook is not a trustworthy platform, full of scams and bots.
A Trusted Source
One huge difference between the Fillmore County Journal newspaper and social media platforms like Facebook relates to our human accountability factor.
Whether someone calls our office, stops by at the front counter or e-mails us with an ad, our staff is well-trained to watch for red flags. I would say at least once a month we encounter a scammer trying to get an ad in the newspaper. They usually arrive by e-mail, and we can tell based on the way the script is written whether it is a scam.
And, this is where our team arrived at a discussion about how we are not only a trusted source for local news. We are also a trusted source for local advertisements. We’ve known this for decades, but it has become more apparent in contrast to the nefarious tendencies allowed on social media.
While Mark Zuckerberg manages his $1.55 trillion social media juggernaut, sinking $600 billion into artificial intelligence over the next three years, our newspaper invests in local people (the FCJ team) who care about publishing a newspaper free of scammers – doing our part to protect our readers from fraudulent schemes.
We publish “Ads You Can Trust,” in print and on our website.
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