Thailand’s Digital Minister said he may recommend the court shut down Facebook in the country to curb financial scams involving crypto being promoted on the platform. He argues fraudsters use Facebook to advertise investment schemes and defraud victims. By proposing Meta’s closure, the Minister aims to aid in stopping scammers that leverage the social network to target users in Thailand.
Is there no longer any Meta in Thais?
The Ministry of Digital Economy and Society in Thailand has observed scammers using popular social platforms like Meta/Facebook to post fake advertisements and defraud people into investing money that later gets drained. Scams often exploit images of well-known figures to appear more legitimate.
Due to this, Minister Chaiwut Thanakmanusorn said his team may submit a proposal to ban Meta in Thailand by the end of the month. Shutting down access could aid investigations into scams tricking people into pouring money into things like gold, lending platforms, forex trading, and cryptocurrencies.
The Minister stated: “DES is gathering evidence of offenders abusing Facebook to send the court to order Facebook’s closure within 7 days for enabling scams.” This ban would support probes into the entities behind investment frauds proliferating on the platform.
Minister Thanakmanusorn estimates that over 200,000 people have fallen victim to scams proliferating on platforms like Facebook, losing close to $300,000 collectively.
The Ministry of Digital Economy and Society has also issued warning letters to Meta and other companies demanding they remove over 5,300 fraudulent ads and pages that could potentially harm users in Thailand. In addition to proposing banning Meta, the Ministry is also pressuring it and other companies to take down thousands of scam ads and pages victimizing users.
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