Social Media Is “Too Slow” Dealing With Scams

Social Media

Social Media has had a rough ride over the last couple years. Whether it’s election tampering, spreading hate speech or distributing fake news, they have rarely been in the news for a good reason.

The European Commission, however, has just dumped a fresh load of criticism on social media sites saying that they are far too slow and inept in dealing with scammers.

Fraud and Scams

In a report via the BBC, in 2016, Facebook, Twitter and Google were asked to implement measures to address and hopefully reduce scams and frauds being conducted on their websites.

Nearly 18 months later, the European Commission (the EC) feel that none of these websites has taken any proactive action in these areas and if they are, they are acting “too slowly” and as such, what they have done has only partially met the requirements.

Regulation

In their most recent proposals, Google will meet the requirements. The EC has, however, found Facebook and Twitter way behind where they should be.

Following a series of complaints, the social media sites agreed to the following terms;

• The terms of services limiting or totally excluding the liability of social media networks in connection with the performance of the service

• Terms requiring consumers to waive mandatory EU consumer rights, such as their right to withdraw from an online purchase

• The terms depriving consumers of their right to go to court in their member state of residence, and providing the application of California law

• The term releasing the platform from the duty to identify commercial communications and sponsored content

The EC required these changes to be in place by the end of Q1 in 2018.

What will happen if they don’t comply?

It’s a good question and one in which, despite a bit of searching, I can not find a specific answer to. Presumably, none of these websites will want to receive the displeasure of the EC, but at the same time, I can not necessarily find any set consequences if they don’t.

What do you think? Are scammers on social media a problem? Is the response from the sites not good enough? – Let us know in the comments!

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