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How fraudsters are getting fake articles onto Facebook

Scammers are able to get past automated checks on the social media giant to try to defraud users.

I was curious as to how these scam posts were getting onto Facebook in the first place, so I contacted Tony Gee, a senior consultant at cybersecurity firm Penn Test Partners. This is a type of online fraud called "cloaking", whereby malicious adverts are able to get past a social media firm's review stage because the fraudsters have hidden their intensions. "Malicious advertisers may mask web links or impersonate trusted brands such as the BBC to evade online platforms' reporting systems, and people often don't know they're looking at a scam or a deepfake until it's too late," says Rocio Concha, its director of policy and advocacy.

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