Facebook and Instagram sue China companies for selling fake accounts, likes and followers
- Social media giant said it was ‘enforcing our rights under US intellectual property law for their illegal use of our trademarks and brand’
Facebook said on Friday it filed a lawsuit along with Instagram in US federal court against four companies and three people based in China for promoting the sale of fake accounts, likes and followers.
In a blog post, the company said the accused people and companies promoted the sales on both Facebook and Instagram as well as other online service providers including Amazon, Apple, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter.
“We’re also enforcing our rights under US intellectual property law for their illegal use of our trademarks and brand,” the blog post said. “By filing the lawsuit, we hope to reinforce that this kind of fraudulent activity is not tolerated – and that we’ll act forcefully to protect the integrity of our platform.”
The company accused the unnamed Chinese firms and individuals of creating and promoting the sale of fake accounts, likes, and followers on Facebook and Instagram, infringing on Facebook’s trademarks on their websites and using “Facebook branded domain names to operate their websites (i.e. cyber squatting)”.