The news: Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest will be allowed to take forward his lawsuit against Meta Platforms over scam Facebook advertisements, after a US judge rejected the social media company’s bid to have the Fortescue Metals CEO’s claims dismissed, Reuters reported.
The numbers: Forrest claimed that over 1,000 of the ads circulated on Facebook in Australia between April and November 2023, resulting in millions of dollars in losses for victims.
The context: US district judge Casey Pitts said Australia’s second-richest person can try to prove that Meta’s negligence in allowing the Facebook ads, which show Forrest promoting fake cryptocurrency and other fraudulent investments, breached its duty to operate in a commercially reasonable manner.
The judge also said Forrest, who is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, can try to prove that his name and likeness were misappropriated by Meta, and not just by fraudsters behind the ads.
The California-based company had argued that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act immunised it from liability as a publisher of third-party content. However, Pitts said Forrest’s claims “present a factual dispute regarding whether Meta’s ad systems were neutral tools that anyone could use (or misuse) or whether the tools themselves contributed to the content of the ads”.
In April, Australian prosecutors declined to pursue criminal charges that he brought against Meta in that country over scam cryptocurrency ads.
Lawyers for Meta declined to comment.
What they said: Pitts wrote: “Dr. Forrest claims that Meta profited more from ads that included his likeness than it would have if the ads had not. This is enough to adequately plead that the alleged misappropriation was to Meta’s advantage”.
Forrest said: “This is a crucial strategic victory in the battle to hold Facebook accountable.”
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