A Facebook contract employee was fired for accepting a thousand-dollar bribe to reopen locked advertising accounts

Recently, during an investigation, BuzzFeed News found that a Facebook employee who received thousands of dollars in bribes by a shady affiliate marketing company to reactivate accounts. The ad was once locked for policy violations.

A company spokesperson confirmed that the anonymous employee was fired after BuzzFeed News's investigation led to an internal investigation inside the company. The employee mentioned here works at the Facebook office in Austin.

" This behavior is strictly prohibited by our policies, and this individual is no longer working with Facebook," a Facebook spokesperson said in an email. " We are continuing to investigate the allegations and will take any other necessary action."

The other employee was paid to reactivate advertising accounts associated with Ads Inc., a San Diego-based marketing company that had previously been exposed by BuzzFeed News behind a fraud. en on Facebook, in particular, posted ads worth more than $ 50 million to spread false information about celebrities. These ads are part of a scheme to trick consumers into signing up for an expensive monthly plan for a product advertised for trial use. Ads Inc. Microsoft announced it would stop working in October this year after being accused by BuzzFeed News.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner told BuzzFeed News that exposing Facebook employees who were bribed to reactivate fraudulent ads was the next evidence of irresponsibility of platforms and decadence. of digital advertising markets.

"Advertising market based on fraud-laden behavior"

"For more than 4 years, I have expressed concerns with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that advertising markets are based on fraudulent behavior – not just in the form of click fraud. , but also exploits the scale of large platforms into phishing and illegal scams to directly take advantage of US consumers "- Mark Warner said. " Because of Article 230, neither the victims of these plots nor the lawyers in general can blame the platforms that they constantly tolerate those frauds."

Warner said that the FTC should consider cases like these as " signs of greater problems in the advertising market based on inherently vague, overcrowded, and unregulated behavior."

Conversations gathered by BuzzFeed News, as well as information from former Ads Inc. employees, show the former CEO of Ads Inc. Asher Burke and the Facebook employee colluded to reactivate the banned advertising accounts, thereby putting Facebook users at risk of being scammed when promoting suspicious products.

In the summer of 2018, a Facebook employee with the chat nick "Ryan" agreed with Burke that for an initial fee of $ 5,000 and a monthly maintenance fee of $ 3,000, he would reactivate the advertising accounts. has been discontinued for policy violations.

A former Ads Inc. employee revealed to BuzzFeed that the company has more than one "insider" at Facebook with the ability to reactivate ads for a certain fee.

" To be honest, there are a few people who can turn the ads back on," they told BuzzFeed News. They said that the "mice" in Facebook would not receive money if the ads were reactivated did not appear for at least 2 days.

Facebook declined to comment on whether it had any additional employees who helped re-activate the ads, but said the investigation was still ongoing.

In a message, Burke passed Ryan two advertising account IDs to reactivate. Burke said he felt that some ads were " about to be accepted" and hoped to be able to guarantee the re-activation after a second review. The vast majority of Ads Inc.'s advertising BuzzFeed News's view revolves around false information about celebrities, but it is unclear exactly which ads Burke is referring to in the above message, and why he thinks they will be accepted.

Ryan reviewed the ads above and told Burke that they clearly violated the company's policies. " I have personally reviewed the ads and not the false reporting system," the person replied. Ryan then offered to help Burke reactivate the ads – for a fee, of course.

"I will 'feign ignorance' and pretend to reactivate them because of" confusion ".

Ryan told Burke that he could use " a special tool that few people can use" to reactivate a large number of all advertising accounts linked to one "business manager." Facebook "page. These accounts allow advertisers to manage multiple sites and different advertising accounts from a single center. Ryan said that if everything went as planned, he could reactivate all 59 advertising accounts associated with the business management account that Burke was requesting.

Ryan said he would pretend to not know what the problem was if someone asked why reactivate a business management account that had been deactivated because of policy violations.

" I will 'play dumb' and pretend to reactivate them because of 'confusion'," the person said. After that, he continued to discuss money issues with Burke.

" About the payment, I suggest 3k / month if cooperating for at least 3 months. Or a fee of 5k to try to solve this problem for you and support you in 1 month …" – Ryan wrote as Thus, it is emphasized that " those accounts, when activated, can be spent millions of dollars", take advantage of the value of their help.

Burke agrees to pay Ryan $ 5,000 immediately and move on to a monthly fee as long as the re-activated accounts can be maintained for several weeks.

" It's good to be back at work," Burke wrote.

" Yes sir, a new game has begun" – Ryan replied.

Those messages show that the two had a different settlement before, when Ryan was tasked with evaluating ads within Facebook's policy group, before moving on to a new job he described as "risk" group.

Burke told a business partner in a private conversation that " all appeals to the policy went smoothly at the Austin office where this guy worked", and that Ryan " once directed that office". Burke said that although Ryan no longer runs the policy team, he can still " hire someone for us" to help reactivate the ad.

Once the deal with Ryan was done, Burke informed his partner of the good news.

" V * i lol" – the partner said.

" Ya" – Burke replied, ending the message with a pocket-shaped emoji!

Reference: BuzzFeedNews