Facebook owner Meta in ‘early stages’ of scam protection for NZ

Wednesday, 12 February 2025

Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly is working on a Pacific-wide code for social media companies with the governments of Singapore and Australia.

Internet scams could be costing New Zealanders as much as a billion dollars a year ‒ and now Meta, owner of Facebook, has finally sought to extend its anti-scam protections to this country.

The American social media giant caused anger last year when it set up an anti-scam advertising scheme in Australia, but did not do the same in New Zealand.

But Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly said Meta had now met with New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority Te Mana Tātai Hokohoko, and was in the “early stages” of developing protections to cover New Zealand.

A plan was being developed with the governments of Singapore and Australia for a Pacific region code of conduct for social media companies on scams. Officials at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment had been asked to look at options for law reforms similar to those being made in Australia.

ANZ's head of customer protection Alan Thomsen speaks about the prevalence of scams on Facebook Marketplace at an anti-scam event in July 2024.

Under the Australian plan, developed last year, “designated” industries, including telecoms, social media and banks would have to take reasonable steps to detect and prevent attempts to scam users, and failing to do so would result in them facing fines.

Meta also attended a “roundtable” meeting of banks, telecoms companies and social media operators late last year, organised by Bayly.

“I was delighted that as a consequence of the meeting, Meta agreed to meet with the Financial Markets Authority to discuss how Meta could use FMA's services to require all financial advertisers to be verified,” Bayly said.

The service was being rolled out in Australia and Cheryl Seeto, head of Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands at Meta, had indicated openness to rolling it out in New Zealand.

“Meta has since said they are in the ‘early stages’ of developing this product for New Zealand and that it won't be available soon, however I intend to continue to push for swift implementation of this service, and if necessary, am willing to apply legislative or regulatory pressure,” Bayly said.

“I have tasked my MBIE officials with considering what a tougher legislative or regulatory approach would look like, possibly modelled off the legislation being progressed in Australia, and expect to be able to announce policy decisions within the next few months.”

Bank chief executives, including Westpac’s Catherine McGrath and ASB’s Vittoria Shortt, have been lobbying government to require social media to play a much more active role in preventing scams from being advertised on their platforms.

Social media companies are being increasing pressured by countries outside the US to clamp down on scams that originate on their platforms.

They complained that it took far too long for social media companies to take down scam advertising, even when alerted.

A large number of scams originate on social media, including Facebook Marketplace, and in some cases the platforms are earning advertising revenue from adverts placed by criminals promoting their fake investment offers.

After adverse media coverage, Alphabet, the owner of Google, agreed to extend the scam protections it had to protect Australia from scam advertising to New Zealand.

Bayly told a financial services conference last week that scams could be costing New Zealanders more than $1 billion each year.

The minister said: “The industry roundtable was fruitful and marked the beginning of an important process of better coordinating industry and government efforts to prevent and respond to scams.

“It was the first time that many of the people who attended had met and engaged with each other. Collaboration within industry – as in within the banking or within the telco sector – is largely pretty good. But collaboration across sector is particularly fragmented.”

“The purpose of this first meeting was to introduce all participants, open lines of communication, and start a process of driving better accountability and transparency. It was an opportunity for all the participants to understand what other work their peers are doing and seek out opportunities to collaborate.”

Bayly said: “At the end of last year, I hosted Hon Stephen Jones, who has been leading Australia's fight against scams, for several days. He and his team shared insights into Australia's approach tackling scams with officials at the FMA, Commerce Commission, and MBIE. We also hosted a ministerial meeting which was attended by Hon Mark Mitchell, Hon Judith Collins, and Hon Casey Costello.

'I am shortly meeting again with Hon Stephen Jones and our Singaporean counterpart to discuss ways our countries can collaborate on preventing and responding to scams. Top of the agenda will be a discussion around adopting a shared code of conduct to apply to social media platforms operating across the region.

“The majority of scams originate on social media platforms and social media companies largely ignore the problem. This is not unique to NZ and is an issue that all our neighbours and partners face. It is clear that to tackle this, we need strength in numbers and a united regional approach.”