Singapore’s authorities have directed Meta to undertake anti-scam measures concentrating on commercials, accounts, profiles, and enterprise pages that impersonate outstanding authorities officers on its Fb platform, studies Reuters.
The initiative is geared toward tackling the rising incidence of scams.
Failure to adjust to this directive may lead to fines of as much as S$1m ($775,698), marking the primary enforcement motion below the not too long ago enacted On-line Felony Harms Act, which took impact in February 2024.
Singapore State Residence Affairs Goh Pei Ming acknowledged, “We’re issuing (the order) to Meta as a result of Fb is the highest platform utilized by scammers for such impersonation scams, and the police has assessed that extra decisive motion is required to curb these scams.”
Meta has not but offered a response to requests for remark concerning this order, the report stated.
In August, the Ministry of Residence Affairs reported that greater than one-third of e-commerce scams recorded in 2024 had been performed through Fb.
The platform was additionally recognized as having the weakest anti-scam options amongst six e-commerce marketplaces evaluated.
Latest police information revealed a surge in scams involving impersonation of presidency officers, with instances rising from 589 within the first half of 2024 to 1,762 in the identical timeframe in 2025.
The monetary losses attributed to those scams reached S$126.5m, a rise of 88% from the S$67.2m misplaced within the earlier 12 months.
The Ministry of Residence Affairs famous that Fb Market has applied “enhanced consumer verification measures” for sure sellers in Singapore since 2024.
Moreover, the platform has launched in-product security alerts and anti-scam notifications inside its messaging providers to tell customers concerning the dangers related to e-commerce scams.
These actions adopted prior criticism from the federal government concerning Meta’s inadequate safeguards to guard customers from fraudulent actions.
In February 2024, former Minister of State for Residence Affairs Solar Xueling remarked that the corporate had “persistently pushed again” towards the ministry’s ideas for implementing measures similar to consumer verification towards government-issued identification and offering safe fee choices to mitigate e-commerce scams on the platform.
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