Attorney General Moody Leads AGs Calling on Meta to Protect Users’ Accounts from Scammers

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—Attorney General Ashley Moody today is leading a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general calling on Meta to protect users’ accounts from scammers. Attorney General Moody, along with 39 other attorneys general, is demanding Meta address the recent rise of Facebook and Instagram platform account takeovers by scammers. Account takeovers are when bad actors break into a user’s account and change passwords, effectively hijacking the account and blocking out the rightful owner. Attorney General Moody is also calling on Meta to thoroughly review data-security practices for protecting its users’ accounts.

Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “Meta must do more to protect its users from hackers hijacking accounts to perpetuate scams. Today, I called on Meta to take proactive steps to mitigate this rapidly growing problem and help us stop identity theft, cybercrime and the general frustration that accompanies an account takeover.”

After hijacking a Facebook or Instagram user’s account and changing the password, scammers can steal personal information, read private messages, pose as the user to scam contacts, and even post publicly as the rightful user. All these actions cause undue harm and stress to account owners and connections. Over the past year, account takeovers dramatically increased.

In a letter to Meta, Attorney General Moody and the bipartisan coalition outline a series of commonsense steps the tech company should take. These include the need to increase staffing to respond to account takeover complaints and greater investment in account takeover mitigation tactics. The attorneys general also call on Meta to adopt new procedures for users to protect themselves from account takeovers, including multi-step authentication measures. The bipartisan coalition urges Meta to take this issue more seriously and take stronger enforcement actions against scammers.

Users who experience an account takeover from a scammer or bad actors are encouraged to raise this concern to Meta immediately. Users unable to get in touch with Meta or have the issue resolved can refer to this Facebook page with information on how to address an account takeover situation.

Attorney General Moody is joined by the attorneys general of the following states in signing the letter: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

To read the full letter, click here.

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