Facebook faces up to Libra fakers as crypto scammers gather

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Facebook’s embattled stablecoin project Libra is facing new challenges, as the social media giant comes under pressure to take on the growing number of scammers and fraudsters flocking to the project.

Only a matter of weeks since Facebook published its whitepaper, a number of fake accounts and communications around the stablecoin have sprung up, with several fake accounts, profiles and groups claiming to offer fake Libra for sale, The Washington Post reported.

They join an ever-expanding list of fake websites which make similar claims, aiming to dupe unsuspecting investors into buying fraudulent tokens.

The fake profiles and communications often look convincing, featuring Facebook logos and branding, as well as official marketing images and photography associated with the project. According to The Washington Post, Facebook has already been forced to close a number of accounts identified as fakes.

A spokesperson for Facebook said they continually work to identify scams, frauds and fake profiles on their network, noting, “Facebook removes ads and pages that violate our policies when we become aware of them, and we are constantly working to improve detection of scams on our platforms.”

However, Professor Eswar Prasad of Cornell University’s economics faculty said it was ironic that Facebook’s own currency should be hampered by scams on the social network, given its often lackadaisical response to other types of scams on its platforms.

“There is a deep irony here in Facebook being used as the platform that could undermine trust in the currency Facebook is trying to build trust in,” Prasad told the news outlet.

The problems are the latest to affect the Libra cryptocurrency project, which has come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks at the hands of regulators and central banks, particularly in Europe and the United States.

While Facebook seeks a global roll-out for the cryptocurrency, numerous regulators have indicated the process may not be as straightforward as Facebook hopes, with concerns around financial and monetary stability amongst the key concerns raised.

With the latest raft of scams now attracting further unwanted attention for Facebook, the social media platform clearly still has work to do to get its stablecoin project off the ground.