Scammers are using Meta’s copyright tools to blackmail Facebook and Instagram influencers

Some social media influencers on Facebook and Instagram are now tackling a new and growing problem on Meta-owned platforms: extortion.

According to a new report Bloomberg, Scammers are now taking down copyright on Facebook and Instagram content that they don’t own, and they do so using Meta’s own copyright management tools, which are designed to help protect creators’ work.

Malicious actors are trying to extort thousands of dollars from influencers, sometimes even demanding recurring payments to prevent future illegal takedowns.

Using Meta’s own tools to blackmail influencers

A new report from Bloomberg focuses on social media influencers in the Middle East who found their content removed by Meta’s rights management tools due to non-existent copyright issues. When these content creators contacted the contacts who posted the takedowns through the Meta system, the scammers behind the copyright strikes admitted that there was no actual copyright issue and then attempted to extort them.

This type of fraud seems to be increasing on social media platforms, so scammers are likely to be successful in their fake copyright schemes.

One influencer from Iraq said scammers were willing to pay $3,000 to restore their deleted content. Additionally, the scammers offered to pay recurring monthly payments of $1,000 or an annual upfront payment of $7,000 to stop fraudulent removal requests for their content.

Scammers have long tried to use the weapon of copyright to extort money from Facebook users. However, most attempts are usually ignored because they usually contain Phishing emails Pretend to be from the company.

However, more resourceful scammers are now selling access on the black market to gain access to Meta Rights Manager, a tool that requires Meta approval. With this tool, users are not threatened with copyright removal to be blackmailed; the removal occurs, which may make the blackmail easier.

Fraudulent copyright takedowns are becoming a bigger problem on social media

Content creators often have to deal with bad actors stealing their work from online platforms and uploading it as their own. Often, these people will monetize this content, essentially stealing money from the original creators.

To help solve this problem, many platforms over the years have launched rights management and copyright tools for large content creators and companies. Essentially, these tools help creators take a proactive approach by establishing ownership of specific content. From there, these creators can issue takedown orders when their content uploads are detected on social media platforms.

However, scammers have discovered that they can exploit these tools but upload the stolen content as their own, so the platform mistakenly sees the thieves as the rightful owners.

This doesn’t just happen on Meta-owned platforms. Unfortunately, this is a fairly common phenomenon practice Publish on YouTube through the platform’s own creator rights management tools.

One specific incident involving false copyright claims for music on YouTube highlights just how lucrative this scam can be for these scammers. as mixable report In 2022, two scammers stole more than $23 million through YouTube’s Content ID system alone for songs they claimed had nothing to do with them.

With incentives in place for scammers, this abuse is likely to worsen until social media platforms do a better job of weeding these bad actors out of their rights management tools.

Mashable has reached out to Meta for comment and will update if we hear back.