Meta eliminates more than 2 million accounts linked to the ‘pig slaughter’ scam so far this year

Nov. 22 (Portaltic/EP) –

Meta has removed more than two million accounts related to the pig slaughter scam so far this year, an effort resulting from a combination of internal tools and collaboration with local authorities and industry partners.

‘Pig butchering’ is a type of sophisticated scam that arises on social networks, dating apps and messaging services to gain the trust of victims – for example, by simulating a romantic relationship. – and manipulate them into making bank transfers or investing in cryptocurrencies.

Although it is a scam with global reach, its broadcast is mainly in the Asia Pacific region, as Meta has stated. In countries such as Burma, the Philippines and Cambodia, there are centers that attract unemployed people, with too-good-to-be-true job advertisements posted on initially reliable sites, such as local job boards, forums and recruitment platforms, but with the aim of making them work as online scammers, “often under the threat of physical abuse.”

“For more than two years, our teams have focused on investigating and dismantling the activities of criminal scam centers in Southeast Asia,” says the technology company in your official blogwhere it reports that so far this year it has eliminated more than two million accounts linked to these scam centers.

To act against this scam and others like it, Meta has established “teams and systems to help identify and pursue these hotbeds of scams globally,” supported by its security policies and the prohibition of groups and individuals that promote fraud. violence, organized crime, hatred or terrorism on their social networks.

Together with local authorities and other technology industry partners, through the Tech Against Scams coalition, it manages to disrupt malicious activity, but Meta has also implemented additional protections in its products, such as warnings in Messenger and Instagram direct messages. , about potentially suspicious or cold contact interactions, and the information label with context about a new contact on WhatsApp that the user does not know.