California Court Allows Misappropriation, Negligence Claims in Meta Lawsuit Over Cryptocurrency Ads

On Monday, June 17, 2024, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued an order granting in part Meta Platforms’ motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Australian businessman Andrew Forrest.

Forrest, the founder and executive chairman of Fortescue Metals Group, filed the lawsuit against Meta in September 2021, alleging that his name and likeness had been used without permission in fraudulent cryptocurrency and investment advertisements posted on Meta’s platforms. The ads reportedly showed Forrest endorsing investments that claimed to turn small amounts of money into millions within a short period of time. Some of the ads also included manipulated videos depicting Forrest.

Forrest has received widespread recognition in Australia for his business success and charitable donations of over $7 billion Australian dollars. However, he does not use social media himself. The lawsuit states that when Forrest first learned his image was being used to create fake profiles on Facebook in 2014, he warned Meta about the issue. Since 2019, Forrest alleges he has continued learning about scam ads appearing on Facebook and Instagram that feature his name and likeness.

Several Australians reportedly fell victim to the fraudulent ads and lost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency or other investment scams. Forrest paid for an investigation that found the advertisers were located abroad in places like Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. He warned Meta about the problem and asked them to remove the scam ads, according to the court filing.

In its motion to dismiss, Meta argued it was protected from liability for the ads under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This law provides internet platforms immunity from lawsuits regarding content posted by third parties. The court rejected applying immunity at this stage, finding factual disputes over whether Meta contributed to creating the ads through its automated tools and systems.

The court did dismiss some of Forrest’s individual claims but allowed his causes of action for misappropriation of name and likeness as well as general negligence to proceed. Forrest will be granted leave to amend his dismissed claims for negligent failure to warn and unjust enrichment.

Please contact BlockTribune for access to a copy of this filing.