Recently we have covered a few news about online scams such as victims losing almost RM3 billion since 2017, and scammers pretending to be women to lure men into bitcoin investment. We also covered an article that mentioned from 2021 until 30 June this year, there were more than 31,000 online scams reported.
It is no exaggeration to say that someone is getting scammed every day, whether it be online or offline. Maybe even when you are reading this article, someone in Malaysia is falling into a scammer’s trap and is about to lose a lot of money. Greed is human nature; we can’t turn it off, but Meta Malaysia thinks they can help by launching an education campaign.
Meta launched the #TakNakScam awareness campaign yesterday (4 August 2022) together with Royal Malaysian Police’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department (PDRM CCID),
Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (KPDNHEP), Securities Commission Malaysia (SC), Bursa Malaysia Berhad, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), CyberSecurity Malaysia (CSM), The Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) and Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations (FOMCA).
The goal of #TakNakScam is to raise public awareness and educate people on how to recognise, verify, and report extremely deceptive practises used by scammers. This is the second time they are launching this campaign, the first time being July last year. This campaign was well-received. This is why they launched it again (not to mention Malaysians keep getting scammed).
This year, the campaign will be focusing on the top five most prevalent online scams, which are e-commerce scams, illegal loans, job scams, investment scams, and money muling.
To educate the public against these scams, Meta will be launching three new initiatives.
We Think Digital Scams Prevention Modules: This initiative promotes digital literacy; the courses, which will be offered in both English and Bahasa Malaysia, are intended to raise public awareness of the topic.
Immersive Public Education: Utilising various multimedia forms, such as Instagram AR Filters, to create a more engaging learning environment.
Seller Education: Educating sellers on how to safeguard customers and brands from scams.
If you want to learn more about the campaign, you can go here or follow Meta Malaysia in Facebook.
Facebook is a place where scammers like to gather, but the company didn’t say what they are doing internally to combat the ever-growing numbers of scammers and scams on the platform. What we are seeing here is just externally, focusing on the public. Hopefully, Meta won’t just focus on education but forget about the eradication of scams and scammers on Facebook.
