Meta, Carousell show improvements at combating scams: MHA
Reported e-commerce scams on Carousell down by about 11%; for Meta, Facebook Marketplace scams fell by around 55% over the assessment period
[SINGAPORE] The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced on Monday (Mar 10) that Meta and Carousell have shown a decrease in scams during their six-month assessment period.
Enhanced verification measures by Meta and Carousell were assessed during the period, in which both platforms had to verify user identity against government records on selected sellers and advertisers.
Should the scam situation not improve during the assessment period, Carousell would be required to verify identities of all sellers by Apr 1, and Meta would be required to verify the identities of all Marketplace sellers by Mar 1 and advertisers by Apr 1.
In MHA’s assessment of Carousell, reported e-commerce scams on the platform fell by about 11 per cent from June 2024 to December 2024. The full year saw reported scams fall by 46 per cent, said Carousell in a statement.
“While this was not a significant decrease, it was a decreasing trend, and Carousell has demonstrated willingness and proactiveness to work with us on various anti-scam measures,” said the ministry.
As a result, Carousell will not be required to verify all its sellers for now. MHA will extend the assessment period by an additional six months until June 2025, and if reported e-commerce scams do not drop significantly, MHA may mandate the platform to verify the identities of all sellers.
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“Online scams are an evolving challenge across digital platforms, and while no solution is foolproof, we remain dedicated to refining our security measures while keeping our community informed,” said a Carousell spokesperson.
The platform is also developing artificial intelligence tools to detect scams, block harmful content and identify suspicious accounts.
For Meta, Facebook Marketplace scams fell by about 55 per cent over the assessment period from May 2024 to November 2024. However, reports of scams in advertisements on Facebook increased by 12 per cent over the assessment period from June 2024 to December 2024.
However, MHA notes that the verification requirements were restricted to paid advertising while scam reports are from both paid and unpaid posts and advertisements due to the limitations in data reporting to the Singapore Police Force.
Therefore, MHA will not mandate verification for all marketplace sellers, but may mandate it should the situation worsen. Meta intends to verify the identities of all its advertisers on Facebook by end-June 2025 after the assessment, a voluntary move not mandated by MHA.
Advertisers will not just need to verify their identity but also to disclose the beneficiary of the ad and the payer of the ad as part of the enhanced verification measures, said Dr Rafael Frankel, director of public policy, Southeast Asia, Meta.
“Information about the verified beneficiary and payer will be included on the ad infosheet and in the publicly accessible Ad Library,” said Dr Frankel.
There are also ongoing efforts to test facial recognition technology to detect and remove celebrity-bait ads. The same technology is also being tested as a way for people to verify their identity and regain access to compromised accounts.
Meta is also working to add enhanced verification measures for Facebook Pages, with MHA assessing the effectiveness of the measures. For now, Meta will apply the verification requirements to selected Pages.
MHA will continue to waive the requirement on payment protection mechanisms for now, for online platforms to focus on anti-scam measures.
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