Thread by @CraigSilverman

NEW: FB Marketplace has 1 billion users and is one of the company’s most promising sources of $$. But growth comes at a cost: our investigation reveals how FB fails to protect buyers and sellers from scam listings, fake accounts & violent crime. Thread... propublica.org/article/facebo…

Internal documents, interviews with Marketplace workers, and law enforcement records show how the product has become a favorite of cybercriminals who come from around the world to find victims. There’s a staggering array of scams being perpetrated on Marketplace:

Facebook says Marketplace “lets you see what real people in your own community are selling,” and that viewing a profile is a great way to see who you’re dealing with. But workers say hacked and fake accounts are a huge issue, and are used by fraudsters to rip off people at scale

Scams and crime are always a reality on peer-to-peer sales sites. But FB’s scale, existing safety issues, and approach to securing its platform create a unique opportunity for bad actors. The company says it heavily invests in systems and people to protect Marketplace.

Marketplace's flaws reflect Facebook's approach to overseeing its platform. It rapidly scales new products to a user base of ~3 billion, and then relies on automated systems, low-paid contractors and a smaller number of full-time FB employees to enforce its rules.

We found a network of fake & suspicious accounts posting thousands of Spanish-language listings for penis enlargement/ED. These obviously bogus profiles flooded Marketplace with listings featuring hypersexalized images for oral supplements that violated multiple FB policies.

After clicking on a few of the posts, they began appearing in my Marketpalce recommendations. Facebook eventually removed thousands of the listings and took other action against more than 100 accounts after we informed the company of the activity.

Workers said used car scams are also pervasive on Marketplace. We identified thousands of bogus listings for used cars with minimal effort. Scammers hack into profiles and use them to post dozens of listings for the same vehicle targeted at different parts of the US.

Once again, scam vehicle listings posted by hacked accounts started showing up in my recommendations. I was often served a mix of truck scams, ED posts, and other listings that violated FB’s rules.

Marketplace contract workers said they rarely, if ever, stop someone from getting ripped off. And until recently, they had largely unfettered access to Facebook Messenger inboxes. This resulted in people spying on romantic partners and other privacy violations, workers said.

Facebook said Marketplace workers no longer have access to Messenger inboxes. Instead, workers can access Marketplace messages during an investigation. FB said it has a zero-tolerance policy for ppl who break its rules. (Workers confirmed people have been fired for snooping.)

Internal documents show Marketplace workers have to be familiar with a dizzying array of global scams being perpetrated on the service. Multiple countries have been labeled “high risk” due to the prevalence of scams originating from them. Benin is one such country.

Documents said scammers based there use fake and hacked accounts to run listings for scam loans and male enhancement products. Yet in spite of the “unusually high scam prevalence” in Benin, Facebook officially launched Marketplace there last month.

We looked at cases where police say criminals used Marketplace to lure victims for armed robbery/murder. One involved Joshua Gorgone of Penn. Police say he stabbed a woman to death when she came to his apartment to buy a fridge he’d listed on Marketplace. He pled not guilty.

On Facebook, Gorgone went by the user name Thraxx Mula and had a gun in his profile’s background image. Months after being charged with murder, his profile was still online with four Marketplace listings. FB removed it after being contacted by us. The company declined to comment.

There’s *lots* more in the story, including a look at people fencing stolen goods on Marketplace, and some of the measures taken by eBay and Craigslist to rein in scams which Facebook has yet to adopt. Reporting by me, @ACInvestigates + @peterelkind: propublica.org/article/facebo…

Coda: As a result of reporting this story, my Marketplace recommendations are still garbage and now I’m being shown Cialis and Viagra ads nonstop on Facebook...