Criminal Networks Are Taking Advantage of Covid-19 to Push Fake Products on Social Media
The coronavirus pandemic has upended daily life and strained the global economy. Criminal networks, however, are taking advantage of the new world order, especially the fact that lockdown means people are spending more time than ever online. As of April 21, 2020, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) had fielded more than 3,600 complaints related to Covid-19 scams, including websites advertising fake vaccines and treatments.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, ACCO experts have been gathering evidence and analyzing data across the various crime sectors we track. Dr. Tim Mackey has been tracking posts advertising coronavirus masks, bogus treatments and fake test kits, providing tips that have been acted on by the Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission. Our partners at Advocating Against Romance Scammers are warning the public that criminals are stealing photos of first responders to use in romance and other financial scams. The Wildlife Justice Commission is warning that wildlife traffickers will take advantage of closed parks and a lack of anti-poaching resources to stockpile ivory and pangolin scales, which often sell online. The ATHAR Project, which tracks the online trade in conflict antiquities, has charted an increase in looting in the MENA region.
For years, Big Tech has been reluctant to increase efforts to moderate content featuring or facilitating illegal activity. Within the last year especially, bipartisan U.S. lawmakers have been debating whether to reform CDA 230, a controversial law that currently provides tech platforms broad immunity for user-generated content, instead of holding them legally liable for any harm their products facilitate. Thanks to the existence of this law, major platforms have implemented inadequate controls over illicit and toxic content, and as a result their platforms have become vast cybermarkets for opioids, ivory, plundered antiquities and even slaves.
As Covid-19 spread, criminals took advantage of widespread panic, advertising fake test kits and N95 masks. We want the public to realize: there are no legitimate home test kits for COVOID-19! The only ones proven to work must be processed with specialized lab equipment. Yet on the Internet, scammers continue to advertise test kits that promise to screen for Covid-19 in urine samples, blood or saliva. Warning: These don’t work!
As Dr. Tim Mackey pointed out to The Register, “These fake tests could make the outbreak worse. What if they come out negative? People might be less inclined to follow social distancing guidelines when they could be carriers of the disease.”
It’s easy to find advertisements offering to sell N95 masks online, even though the Food and Drug Administration says they are a critical type of Personal Protective Equipment currently reserved for healthcare workers and first responders. Health officials warn that many being offered online are of dubious quality. This presents an enormous risk to human safety, especially if medical workers facing shortages buy fake N95 masks. This could put the medical workers themselves at risk of infection, and they would be at great risk of infecting others.
Facebook said it was “banning ads and commerce listings selling medical face masks” by March 6, adding it would “make necessary updates to our policies if we see people trying to exploit this public health emergency.” The Facebook-owned platform Instagram did the same and was followed by Google a few days later, which announced it had “decided to temporarily ban all medical face mask ads” and was “actively monitoring the situation.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) on March 17 tweeted screenshots of what he said were examples of Google’s third party advertising display network serving ads for face masks alongside news stories related to Covid-19.
But many noticed the alleged bans were not working. On March 23rd, the Tech Transparency Project reported that it was possible to quickly identify more than 130 pages advertising N95 masks on Facebook using basic search terms like “corona mask,” “N95,” and “surgical mask.” Their investigation found similar results on Instagram and Google.
On Facebook, some of these accounts used the platform’s “Shop” feature to display the merchandise, allowing users to purchase directly through the platform. Facebook takes a fee for any transactions processed through its Shop, which means that the company is directly profiting from the very face mask sales it promised to ban. Other pages directed users to complete the purchase on the sellers’ website or to contact them through Facebook Messenger, Facebook-owned WhatsApp or eBay stores.
Complicating moderation efforts, Facebook and other social media platforms have sent home their human moderators to comply with lockdown orders, forcing the platforms to rely more than ever on their AI systems. Coronavirus has thus revealed the extent to which automated systems still fail to spot nuance in user-generated content. Across various major platforms, AI blocked coronavirus content from legitimate news sources, while ads for fake products abounded.
Offline, Big Tech is taking advantage of the pandemic to push multiple agendas and to slow the pace of key federal and state probes. Facebook increased its lobbying spend 19% in Q1 2020, focusing on a variety of issues, including blocking changes to CDA 230. They are also quietly setting up a pro-tech advocacy group called American Edge, whose focus will be to blast policymakers with advertising and other political spending, convincing them that tech is essential to the economy and the future of free speech. Amazon managed to get itself qualified as an essential service while Google and Apple are building tools they aim to implant in public health systems. Big Tech’s deep pockets will allow these powerful firms not just to withstand the coming global recession, but also to advance their interests.
At ACCO we recognize what a positive role Big Tech could play, both in helping end the pandemic more quickly, and in keeping economies in better shape until it does. But there’s also no denying tech firms need to step up to prevent illicit actors from scamming innocent people, and increasing public health risks.
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