SINGAPORE:  , The Ministry of Home Affairs said on Monday ( Mar 10 ) that it welcomed Meta’s decision to verify the identities of all advertisers amid an increase in the number of , scams.
Under the , Online Criminal Harms Act ( OCHA ), the ministry had, over six months, assessed the effectiveness of Carousell and various Facebook services only verifying the identity of certain sellers.
The Act, which came into effect in June last month, targets online articles used to , facilitate schemes and destructive computer activities.
Retailers and advertisers using the four online solutions with the highest threats of e-commerce schemes in Singapore - , Facebook Advertisements, Facebook Pages, Facebook Marketplace and Carousell - , were subject to confirmation against government-issued information. The websites also had to offer payment protection systems to users.
In 2024, Facebook made up 37.4 per share of all e-commerce schemes with 4, 368 reported cases, while Carousell represented 17 per cent with 1, 987 circumstances.
FACEBOOK Advertising
MHA said that the amount of fraud reports arising from , advertisements on Facebook increased by about 12 per cent over the six-month evaluation phase.
It noted that while , Meta’s verification requirements were restricted to paid advertising, the police ‘s , data on scam advertising comprise both paid advertising and unpaid content and ads like those on Facebook websites, due to the way data is reported to the authorities.
” Meta intends to check the names of all ads on Twitter by end-June 2025″, the MHA said, adding that it welcomes this and will monitor the situation.
FACEBOOK Sites
MHA said it had observed” a considerable percentage” of e-commerce scams , being perpetrated on Facebook Pages. Scammers may build sites under , the excuse of advertising the sale of goods and services in order to reach out to their patients.
” MHA is working with Meta to offer the superior identification need for Facebook Pages in 2025″, it said.
Meta may be allowed to , use the verification needs only to selected sites for a start.
Similar to its approach to the other Twitter companies being scrutinised,  , the effectiveness of Facebook Pages ‘ measures will become assessed for a period.  ,
” If the hoax statistics do not decrease significantly, we may need stronger measures to be implemented, such as requiring Twitter to use validation needs to all pages”, MHA said.