Facebook Cryptocurrency Scams Are Already Taking Off

Many privacy advocates and lawmakers were skeptical when Facebook announced it was rolling out its own cryptocurrency called Libra. For a company with so many privacy problems, trusting it with financial information seemed unwise. It could be obtained by hackers, accidentally leaked to third parties or taken advantage of by scammers. Unfortunately, some of those fears have already come true. According to a report this week in The Washington Post, cybercriminals are cashing in with fake Facebook currency of their own.

“There is a deep irony here in Facebook being used as the platform that could undermine trust in the currency Facebook is trying to build trust in,” Cornell University professor Eswar Prasad told The Washington Post.

According to the Post’s investigation, many of the fake pages are branded with Facebook and Libra’s official marketing logos, or photos of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. They also link out to well-designed landing pages offering users the chance to buy “Libra tokens.” For its part, Facebook said that it has been made aware of the scams and is working to remove them.

“Facebook removes ads and pages that violate our policies when we become aware of them, and we are constantly working to improve detection of scams on our platforms,” the company said in a statement.

It’s not shocking that Facebook’s currency has already fallen prey to scammers. It just serves to cast further doubt on what was already a pretty controversial idea.




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