Last week, Meta responded to CFA’s lawsuit about the flood of paid scam ads on their platform with a motion asking to throw out the lawsuit entirely. The crux of the effort to dismiss this lawsuit is Meta’s argument that, because everyone who has a Facebook account supposedly agreed to its lengthy, fine print Terms of Service, CFA can’t sue them in DC Superior Court and can’t sue them over their decisions to mislead consumers about the safety of their platform. These terms – linked next to the tiny box you are required to check before you hit the big Sign Up button, if opened – can change anytime and include ‘agreements’ not even on that webpage.

Meta is also weaponizing Section 230, the 1996 law designed to facilitate open communication on online platforms without holding platforms responsible for everything said on the platform. They’re looking to transform it into blanket protection for the paid advertisements for which Meta provides targeting and even content creation.

As consumer scam losses keep piling up and Meta platforms continue to be where the most reported losses are coming from, the company decided to charge a higher rate for ads they evaluate as a likely scams instead of blocking them. Meta is maximizing their profits from these scam ads and shirking any responsibility to stop them, and the people are paying for it.

In Meta’s own words:

Meta  “makes clear that Facebook [does] not promise to safeguard” the platform. 

“Every one of those individuals [in the proposed class] necessarily created a Facebook account and thereby agreed to Meta’s Terms ...Those Terms provide that Meta “make[s] no guarantees that [its Products] will always be safe, secure, or error-free,” “do[es] not control or direct what people and others do or say,” and is “not responsible for their actions or conduct (whether online or offline) or any content they share (including offensive, inappropriate, obscene, unlawful, and other objectionable content).”