Calls for media regulator to take a ‘hard line' with Facebook on bogus accounts – ‘They could destroy someone's reputation'

Irish Independent

a day ago

Labour TD George Lawlor is the latest in a whole host of public representatives or public figures to have been targeted with a fake 'cloned' account, bearing his name and photos.
The fake account has not made a post publicly yet and, due to Deputy Lawlor making it clear via his own pages that the account was bogus, has only amassed a small number of 'friends' on Facebook.
"While the account may not have posted publicly, I have no way of knowing what kind of private messages its sending to people purporting to be me,' the Wexford TD said.
"It's just one example of this type of thing. I and several of my friends and colleagues have reported this fake account to Facebook and they refused to take action stating that it wasn't in breach of their standards. It's bizarre.'
In a correspondence from the social media giant, Deputy Lawlor was told: 'We didn't remove the profile. To keep our review process as fair as possible, we use the same set of Community Standards to review all reports.
"We've taken a look and found that the profile doesn't go against our Community Standards. We understand that this may be upsetting, so we recommend exploring the options available to control what you see.'
The TD was then told he could request a review within 180 days if unhappy with the decision not to remove the page.
"The notion that pages that are clearly fake are not being actioned by Facebook is indicative of the type of organisation that Facebook has become,' Deputy Lawlor blasted.
"God knows what damage a page like this could do to someone's reputation if people were to assume it was the person in the profile picture.
"It's high time that Coimisiún na Meán took a hard line on this. People's reputations can be irreparably tarnished as a result of fake profiles set up by people with nothing better to do.'