Hard defeat for Facebook: The platform must remove fraudulent advertising with the Dutch TV producer, otherwise it could face a fine worth millions.

John de Mol is the creative behind “Endemol” and is known as the producer of various TV shows such as “Big Brother”, “The Voice of Germany”, “Traumhochzeit” and “Deal or no Deal”. But when it comes to fake Bitcoin advertising in his name, de Mol is no joke!

Reportedly, de Mol praised Bitcoin platforms

Rechtspraak.nl reports that between October 2018 and March 2019, sponsored advertisements appeared several times on Facebook in which de Mol allegedly claimed that he had now invested in a new Bitcoin business model and advised readers of these fake ones News sites to do the same.
Many people trusted the ads and lost at least 1.7 million euros by investing in the dubious Bitcoin platforms.

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Facebook initially refused

Only after much urging from de Mol did Facebook remove the misleading advertisements featuring him, but did not agree to stop future false advertisements featuring him.
Facebook's justification: It is a neutral information channel and is therefore not obliged to act against it. In addition, Facebook also refused to hand over the advertisers' data and ban them from Facebook. The company is already doing a lot to combat fake advertising, but further measures cannot be mandatory, are not permitted by law and are not technically possible.

The court disagrees

However, the court did not accept this argument. Since advertising on Facebook is the company's main revenue model, determines advertising prices and actively decides which ads appear on Facebook and Instagram and which do not, they also bear responsibility for obviously misleading advertising.

In fact, there are no legal provisions that would force Facebook to do more to combat fake ads, the court agreed. However, de Mol's demand is very specific, so Facebook cannot argue against it with the lack of a law. Facebook's “freedom of information and expression” argument was also rejected by the court because the fake advertising contained commercial statements and was likely to be punishable by law.

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Technically possible?

Surprisingly, fake advertising with de Mol no longer appears, so it seems to be technically possible to prevent these ads. According to “Rechtspraak”, the fact that the specific removal of ads costs manpower and money is no reason not to do it, as Facebook’s responsibility for its own advertising platform is too great and the false ads have too much influence.

Punishment threatens

Facebook will now continue to allow such ads (and we will continue to warn against them). However, if false Bitcoin ads featuring John de Mol appear, Facebook can be fined up to 1.1 million euros, according to the court ruling.

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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )