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Meta sues advertisers in Brazil and China over 'celeb bait' scams

Meta sues advertisers in Brazil and China over 'celeb bait' scams

Meta has sued the people and groups behind three scam operations that used images and deepfakes of celebrities to lure users to scam websites. According to the company, the three entities were based in China and Brazil and targeted people in the US, Japan and other countries. The ads promoted fraudulent investment schemes and fake health products. Meta said that it had filed lawsuits against several people in Brazil who promoted fake or unapproved healthcare products and online courses promoting them. The company also sued a China-based entity it says used ads featuring celebrities "as part of a larger fraud scheme that lured people into joining so-called investment groups." The company didn't provide details on how many ads these groups had run on Facebook, how many social media users had seen or interacted with the ads or how long the scammers had been operating on the platform. So-called "celeb bait" ads have been a long-running issue for the company. Engadget has previously documented celeb bait scams on Facebook, including ones that frequently use Elon Musk and Fox News personalities to hawk fake cures for diabetes . The Oversight Board has also criticized the company for not doing enough to combat such scams. In its update, Meta says that "because scam ads are designed to look real, they’re not always easy to detect." The company also noted that it has now enrolled "more than 500,000" celebrities and public figures into its facial recognition system that's meant to automatically detect scam ads using the faces of famous people. Meta's handling of scammy advertisers has come under increased scrutiny in recent months after Reuters reported that researchers at the company at one point estimated that as much as 10 percent of its ad revenue could be coming from scams. The fact that Meta has made billions of dollars from problematic advertisers has also caused the company to be slow to take action against repeat offenders. In addition to the groups behind the celeb bait ads, Meta says that it's upgraded its ability to detect scam ads that use cloaking , which has at times hindered its internal review systems. The company also sued a Vietnam-based advertiser it says used scam ads to hawk "deeply discounted items from well-known brands," including Longchamp. Meta also took legal action against eight former "Meta Business Partners," who promoted services that would "un-ban" or other "account restoration services." The company says it will "consider taking additional legal action, including litigation, if they don’t comply" with cease and desist orders. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-sues-advertisers-in-brazil-and-china-over-celeb-bait-scams-190000268.html?src=rss

Lenovo’s new folding handheld gaming tablet thing is ridiculous

Lenovo’s new folding handheld gaming tablet thing is ridiculous

Lenovo has become synonymous with unveiling concept devices, many of which eventually arrive in the market. But Lenovo’s latest is truly bizarre: a folding tablet which doubles both as a laptop and a handheld gaming display with accompanying controllers. It truly looks like something a Lenovo designer would Photoshop and leak as a joke, but WindowsLatest claims that the new Legion Go Fold Concept the real deal, and will be formally announced to the world this coming Monday at the MWC show in Barcelona. The Legion Go Fold Concept is built around a foldable 11.6-inch POLED (plastic OLED) which folds down into a 7.7-inch screen. The interesting angle is that the Legion Go Fold Concept can apparently be used in as a gaming device in either configuration: as a compact, folded handheld, or in what is apparently known as Horizon Full Screen Mode (above), which attaches the handheld controllers on either side of the display just like something like a Microsoft Surface Pro. That’s an apt comparison, as Lenovo will apparently also ship the Legion Go Fold Concept with a a hard, separate keyboard that the tablet can be docked into (along with a folding support) to allow it to work as a traditional PC tablet. One of the handheld controllers can double as a mouse. WindowsLatest says that the tablet will forgo Intel’s latest Panther Lake processors (boo!) for an older Core Ultra Series 2 (Lunar Lake) chip instead, and that the battery is disappointing. Lenovo has (at least for now) bundled a ton of memory inside of it — 32GB — which is good news in a world of memory shortages. We’ve seen some weird concepts before that haven’t come to market (yet), like the Smart Motion Concept stand that positions itself . Lenovo has also wowed us at CES 2026 with a number of concepts that have made it to market, like new iterations of the ThinkBook Rollable concept that expanded the display up and out. But my shelves have also included less successful launches like its AR debut, Marvel Dimension of Heroes , too. Which category will the Legion Go Fold Concept end up in? Whether the Legion Go Fold Concept will ever come to market, or what it will be sold for, is completely unknown. It’s just Lenovo’s track record for showing off what its designers are cooking up in their studios which makes us believe that we’ll see this sometime soon.