Face-off with Facebook for Miriam O’Callaghan
TV presenter says face cream ads which falsely promoted her "erratic behaviour" in the workplace as part of a clickbait scam were the "final straw", prompting her decision to take Facebook to court
Print29 January 2019
In a case which is no doubt of interest to those of you who market your store or brand on social media, TV presenter Miriam O’Callaghan has said she intends to sue Facebook for failing to stop false advertising circulating repeatedly for almost a year.
Several outlandish ads which falsely promoted O’Callaghan’s involvement with a face cream brand featured on the social media mammoth. Designed to appear as news articles, the ads wrongly claimed that O’Callaghan was a huge fan of the face cream in question, even going so far as to allege that the TV presenter was winding down her broadcasting career to focus on the face cream business. What’s more, another post claimed that O’Callaghan’s erratic behavior at work was causing problems for RTE.
The product is part of a scam which asked people to hand over their credit card details in order to receive a free sample. It then later takes money from their account, even when they do not place an order.
Previously, the TV presenter had warned people on her own social media accounts to avoid the scam.
She said her solicitor Paul Tweed had attempted to get Facebook to respond adequately but now her only option was to head to court.
In a press statement, a spokesperson for Facebook said: “The ads that were reported to us by Miriam O’Callaghan have been removed and the relevant accounts disabled. We’re constantly working to detect and shut down this kind of ad activity using a combination of automated and manual systems.”
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