The Thailand Consumers Council is preparing to file the country’s first-ever lawsuit against Facebook for failing to adequately protect people from fraudulent content on its platform.
The civil suit, naming Facebook, its parent company Meta and 16 other defendants, will be filed with the Civil Court on Monday, council secretary-general Saree Aongsomwang said on Thursday.
The council is representing 10 consumers who were victims of fraudulent activity originating on Facebook, with losses of 230 million baht.
The council first approached the social media company in November 2024, sending a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a number of specific recommendations for improving its fraud and scam prevention policies in Thailand.
However, the company’s response has been unsatisfactory, causing the council to resort to court action, Ms Saree said.
She accused Facebook of failing to adequately screen out fraudulent content and illegal advertisements. Such content made false references to well-known people and sold fake and substandard products. There was also content about pirated goods, dangerous products and weapons.
Wrongdoers use the Facebook algorithm to analyse user behaviour and precisely reach their targeted groups, she said. Damaged victims suffer from their losses and some have ended their lives. Meanwhile, Facebook enjoys income from advertising fees collected from content owners, she said.
Ms Saree complained that Facebook was more strict about screening and consumer protection in the United States, Europe and Australia but had no such protection for users in Southeast Asian nations including Thailand.
Statistics from the first four months of 2026 show that Thais lost 7.48 billion baht to online scams, with Facebook the main platform, according to the council.
Boonyuen Siritham, the council president, said that from 2024 to March 2026, the council had received 6,164 complaints about scams and 61% of them involved Facebook. The majority were allegations about sales and investment scams, with investigations in many cases unable to reach a culprit.
Victims included teachers, doctors, businesspeople and government officials, as well as other members of the general public, she said.
The problem resulted not only from technology illiteracy but also from users’ confidence in Facebook, and scammers abused that confidence, Ms Boonyuen said.
One of Meta’s legal defences has been that financial transactions are not completed on its platforms, and it is not involved in handling money.
The company has also said that it continuously updates its policies that prohibit scams and related behaviour to stay one step ahead of bad actors. It also offers tools to allow people to block and report scams, and to warn about potentially suspicious activity.
In April, Thai police announced stepped-up cooperation with Meta to broaden a crackdown on online crime beyond gambling pages to cover all forms of scam networks, with faster detection and takedown measures.
