The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported that a Chinese man posted an advertisement in a Facebook group, hoping to purchase Taiwanese passports. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office charged his Taiwanese Facebook agent for contravening the Passport Act (護照條例) and other laws.
Even a child knows that buying a passport is against the law, but should Facebook be held legally responsible, too?
Facebook, Line and Google’s YouTube should be considered “online advertising platforms” under Article 2 of the newly passed Fraud Hazard Prevention Act (詐欺犯罪危害防制條例), which refers to online platforms that provide paid services to place or broadcast ads on the Internet. This covers most end-to-end online platforms that run ads.
Samuel Lin (林山姆), a police officer, wrote in an opinion piece (“Taiwan’s fraud awareness drives,” Aug. 13, page 8) that “fake online ads are now the main source of Internet fraud.”
“It is fair to say that the total loss of control over online advertising is the biggest loophole in the government’s anti-fraud management,” he wrote. “From January last year to July, the Criminal Investigation Bureau ordered Internet platforms to take down 140,000 fake advertisements, of which more than 90 percent were videos on Facebook and Google’s YouTube.”
To combat fraud, the first step is to control fake ads on the Internet. However, the Fraud Hazard Prevention Act only talks about fraud prevention. It does not cover other crimes. There is also the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Act (證券投資信託及顧問法), which regulates online platform providers, but only for advertising securities investment plans and other similar products.
Online advertising platform operators are required to have quick identification-checking mechanisms, and to formulate lawful, necessary and effective plans for fraud prevention, detection, identification and response.
Platform operators have long had screening mechanisms in place, but they might not have been proactive in implementing them, meaning the scope of the screening has not been sufficiently thorough.
In the passport acquisition case, 11 passports were acquired. Why does Facebook not care about the group that the ads were posted in?
My friend wrote to Facebook twice to point out clearly and definitely that posts promoting “cross-border marriage matchmaking” on the “Vietnamese brides in Taiwan association” page contravened Article 58 of the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法) and the authorities should be alerted. The authorities should have ordered Facebook to remove the posts.
However, Facebook never replied to my friend.
Advertising platform operators are obliged to remove online ads that are known to contravene administrative or criminal laws and regulations. If they receive a report and do not remove the ad because it makes them money, they should be held liable for “aiding an offender” under Article 30 of the Criminal Code, rather than just being penalized by administrative laws.
The Supreme Court has said that aiding an offender in the Criminal Code refers to a person who, with the intention of helping, provides assistance to the perpetrator of an offense without taking part in the act.
If an operator provides an online advertising platform for people to commit crimes, it is helping the offender commit a crime.
Yu Ying-fu is a lawyer.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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