Scams in Southeast Asia: When Self-Regulation is Not Enough

Amid the growing scourge of scam centres in Southeast Asia, social media companies have stressed that they possess sufficient controls in place to police such activities. Quite the contrary, scams and the revenues they generate necessitate the long arm of the law.

According to the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, Mekong Region scam centres steal over US$35 billion annually from victims across East and Southeast Asia. While crypto is the primary channel for stealing funds, social media is the primary channel for luring victims. In Singapore, the Ministry of Home Affairs has singled out Facebook as the top platform used in impersonation scams, while the Philippines’ Bureau of Immigration has highlighted the role of Facebook job postings in recruiting victims to work in scam-hubs.

ASEAN governments seeking to curtail this activity have faced continual resistance from social media companies, which argue that they do not need regulations because they already have sufficient scam-prevention measures. According to Meta’s Head of Security Policy and Counter-Fraud, its incentives are “aligned” to fight scams because a platform rife with scams erodes user trust. While this argument sounds reasonable at first, internal documents obtained by Reuters in 2025 indicate that Meta’s financial incentives point in a different direction.

According to Reuters, Meta internally projected in 2024 that 10 per cent of its revenue, or US$16 billion, originates from advertisements tied to scams or banned goods. While Meta disputes this figure as an “overestimation”, its Head of Security Policy and Counter-Fraud still acknowledged that “high-risk” scams accounted for 3 to 4 per cent of revenue — which is equivalent to 8 to 10 per cent of its 2024 profit. Reuters also found that Meta’s advertiser vetting team had “revenue guardrails” and was hindered from pursuing initiatives costing more than 0.15 per cent of Meta’s revenue.

Reuters’ reporting underscores how social media companies — no matter their public commitments to fight scams and cooperate with law enforcement — cannot be the final arbiter to police the scams they profit from. For example, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has engaged with Meta to remove scam ads and accounts. Yet, according to Reuters, the FCA still finds many previously flagged accounts continuing to post the majority of scam ads on Meta platforms. This frustration is shared by Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs, which stated in the wake of Reuters’ reporting: “More needs to be done to secure Meta’s products and protect users from scams, instead of prioritising its profits.” At the core of this issue is a classic conflict of interest that cannot be resolved by self-regulation alone but rather requires government intervention.

The simplest and most powerful tool to combat scams is mandatory identity verification for advertisers.

Non-compliance exacerbates the conflict of interest problem: even where laws exist, social media companies have ignored them. Malaysia implemented its Online Safety Act (ONSA) in 2025, which required social media companies to be licensed and to adhere to its anti-scam and child safety regulations. Only TikTok, Telegram, and WeChat complied; Meta, YouTube and X ignored the licensing requirements. Meta publicly challenged the regulation, saying it already had safeguards in place and was seeking further engagement with the authorities. Meta has also reportedly ignored requests by the Philippine government to take down deepfakes of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, including one that used his likeness in a video promoting an investment scam.

The simplest and most powerful tool to combat scams is mandatory identity verification for advertisers. While Meta has implemented this for political ads, it still resists regulation that would ban unverified ads in other domains (adopting these regulations would curtail scams but affect revenues). Banks do not allow anonymous accounts and require Know-Your-Customer (KYC) identity verification to deter financial crimes. There is no good reason social media advertisers should be exempt. There is proof of effectiveness: Taiwan implemented mandatory advertiser verification in July 2024 and reported a subsequent 96 per cent drop in investment scam ads. Singapore enacted a similar measure in June 2024, but gave social media companies leeway to only verify the identity of advertisers they deemed high-risk. Consequently, scam ads continued to increase with this partial requirement. By 2025, Singapore instituted mandatory verification for all advertisers as well.

To go a step further, governments need to impose sufficient penalties for non-compliance with directives, such as those requiring taking down impersonation and fake ads. Some countries in the region have secured agreements from Meta to commit to fighting scams but do not impose monetary sanctions for non-compliance. However, Reuters’ reporting reveals that Meta was only compelled to comply with directives when the penalties were adequately high. For example, Taiwan — which leverages public reporting and AI to flag scams — imposes fines up to US$310,000 to compel Meta to remove scam ads within 24 hours of a law enforcement request. Singapore has twice leveraged the threat of penalties of approximately US$780,000 to successfully compel Meta to adopt enhanced counter-scam initiatives.

This is a pressing issue for ASEAN, as evidenced by its September 2025 Declaration on Combatting Cybercrime and Online Scams. Countries seeking to implement mandatory advertiser verification should do so promptly and contemporaneously; Meta’s documents reveal that when advertiser verification is implemented in one jurisdiction, non-verified ads — which have twice the rate of problematic ads — are rerouted to jurisdictions without this verification requirement. At present, measures to regulate social media companies should be targeted rather than comprehensive. The EU’s Digital Services Act imposes fines of up to 6 per cent of global revenues if social media companies have insufficient policies and procedures to combat systemic risks, including scams. Such a measure, while requiring these companies to develop wholesale scam prevention measures, would be difficult for Southeast Asian countries to enforce against platforms domiciled outside their jurisdictions. An approach built on specific, enforceable measures — mandatory verification and calibrated fines — signals a willingness to work with platforms while making clear that non-compliance has consequences. Given the current geopolitical resistance to comprehensive regulation of Big Tech, this is both the more practical and politically durable path forward.

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