October 18, (THEWILL) – About 1,600 Facebook groups linked to online fraudsters notorious for internet scams, have been deleted by Meta, the parent company of the social media platform.
This action, carried out last week, comes after a similar purge in July, when Meta deleted 7,200 Facebook accounts and pages. The company also recently removed 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria linked to financial sextortion scams.
In a statement, released on Thursday, Meta said the groups were being used to recruit, organise, and train new scammers.
“Yahoo Boys are banned under Meta’s Dangerous Organisations and Individuals policy—one of our strictest policies—which means we remove Yahoo Boys’ accounts involved in criminal activity as soon as we identify them”, it said.
In addition to cracking down on scammers, Meta has introduced new safety features designed to protect users, especially teenagers, from sextortion scams. These include blocking suspicious accounts from following teens and limiting scammers’ ability to view follower lists, which are often exploited to blackmail victims.
“We’re constantly updating our defences to protect our community from sextortion schemes. This includes educating teens and their families to recognize scams early, preventing scammers from reaching their targets, and collaborating with industry peers to fight these criminals across platforms”, Meta said.
