Thread by @BuzzFeedNews

A US Army veteran has spent thousands of hours of his own time tracking down fake Facebook accounts using his photo in a “romance scam.”

It's a problem Facebook knows about, but he says the responsibility of cleaning it up has fallen to him.

buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman…

Bryan Denny’s face is frequently used in a scam meant to gain a woman’s trust before asking for money to help with fake emergencies and other needs.

According to the FTC and FBI, this scam has stolen $884 million from Americans since 2015.

Denny met Kathy Kostrub-Waters through the scam (a friend of her mother’s was a victim). Together they’ve reported about 2,000 fake military accounts and have met with Facebook employees to discuss their work.

But in their meetings with Facebook, they get the sense the company doesn’t recognize the scale of its fake account problem.

“It seems like every time we tell them something, they had no idea or didn’t know that was possible,” Denny said.

Facebook is doubling its security and safety teams, but its content moderation team primarily responds to reports, rather than dealing with bad actors.

This means people like Denny and Kostrub-Waters are performing unpaid labor for one of the world’s most valuable companies.

A Facebook spokesperson said “we know we have more work to do” but Denny doesn’t think this should be his job.

"I get really tired of ‘Hey thanks for the work, keep it up.’ I’m like no, dammit, it’s your job to do this.”

buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman…