As scam tactics continue to evolve, Meta’s social media microblogging service Threads has recently surpassed Facebook in reported fraud cases, and victims are trending younger. Digital Minister Lin Yi-jing (林宜敬) said this Wednesday that as fraud groups have shifted their focus to other platforms, the ministry will strengthen communications with platform operators to shorten the time required to remove fraudulent content. 

Legislators pointed out that previously, victims of fraud were predominantly elderly and scammed through Facebook, but a younger demographic is now being targeted via Threads. Last year, fraud moved away from high-value investment scams toward low-amount, high-volume fake online shopping schemes, targeting victims primarily under age 23.

“In the past we thought Facebook was the biggest problem. Once we plugged those gaps, the fraudsters moved to Threads. A lot of the accounts used to impersonate celebrities; we deployed a number of countermeasures and got that largely under control, but now they’ve shifted to online sales scams. We’re working to shorten the time it takes for Meta to take content down after we notify them, which is currently about an hour and a half,” Lin said.

The minister also acknowledged that, as generative AI technology advances, significantly more AI-generated content is likely to appear online. The government has engaged with Google, Meta, and other social media platform operators demanding that they clearly label AI-generated content and imagery. The ministry will also strengthen oversight through its reporting mechanism. 

According to Lin, the ministry detects between 5,000 and 10,000 suspected fraudulent posts and messages daily, but continues to face challenges in verifying the content’s authenticity and determining legal liability. He emphasized that they will continue expanding its anti-fraud team and cooperating with government agencies and private sector companies to address remaining vulnerabilities.