Commentary: We have to be able to hold tech platforms accountable for fraud

THE SUPPLY SIDE OF SCAMS

This “virus”, as Buffett rightly calls it, does not only damage the people who trust fraudulent ads. There is also the supply side of the business.

In October, the British government published a document stating that “across Southeast Asia, scam centres are using sophisticated schemes, including scams in which people are lured into fake romantic relationships, to defraud victims on an industrial scale, including in the UK. Those conducting the scams are often trafficked foreign nationals, trapped and forced to carry out online fraud under threat of torture.”

A story by Srinivasan Ramani, published in The Hindu at the beginning of November, under the headline “How do scam hubs in Southeast Asia operate?” told of the escape of some 500 Indian citizens from “the KK Park cyber crime hub in Myawaddy township, near the Thailand border in south-eastern Myanmar”. This hub was recently taken over by the Myanmar junta.

The article explains that the “Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) calls these ‘compound crime’ facilities industrial, jail-like complexes where thousands are trafficked and forced to commit cybercrimes.

“Traffickers post fake job advertisements for high-paying IT and marketing roles. Victims from India, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Africa, and Latin America are flown to regional hubs like Bangkok, then trafficked overland and forced across borders into Myanmar or Cambodia.

“Once inside compounds secured by high walls and armed guards, victims’ passports are confiscated. They’re told they’ve been ‘sold’ and must work to pay off their ‘debt’, enduring 12-hour workdays running online scams. Those who refuse face torture – beatings, electric shocks, starvation, and solitary confinement.”

These activities, then, have huge numbers of victims at both ends. In between are hugely powerful and profitable social media companies, where, as Sarah Wynn-Williams wrote, Careless People rule.