New moves tackling social media ads long overdue; will stem scam scourge: Experts

New rules to tackle bogus advertisements on social media are long overdue and are expected to have a great impact on countering the scam scourge, said experts.

Even so, the measures are not foolproof, requiring consumers to stay vigilant, they said. For instance, scammers may exploit legitimate online company ads by posing as representatives.

Among a raft of anti-scam measures that the police announced on Aug 18, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have to verify the identities of advertisers on their platforms against government-issued records.

In addition, the platforms have to block advertisements from unlicensed financial services firms, including those not licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). They also have to check bogus links in ads, and promptly remove suspicious ads.

Urging consumers to be wary, Leong Zhen Yang, an associate at IRB Law, said that an MAS licence allowing a company to carry out certain regulated activities does not guarantee that every investment advertised in its name is genuine or safe.

“The advertisement may also have been placed by a rogue representative or a scammer impersonating the licensed company,” he added. “Consumers should therefore verify the specific investment through the company’s official contact channels.”

Associate Professor Hannah Yee-Fen Lim, an expert in law from Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) Nanyang Business School, said the blocking of online financial ads from unlicensed advertisers mirrors rules governing ads in offline physical spaces in Singapore.

“Currently, physical ads are not allowed to be displayed in physical spaces like on MRT trains if they are not licensed by MAS or other authorities,” she said, adding that the new rules are “long overdue”.

“So, blocking ads from unlicensed advertisers really should have been effected some time ago for the online space.”

Lim said that regulatory and compliance costs could have been why such blocking has not been implemented until now when online scams have exploded.

While the number of scams has fallen recently, they remain high. In 2025, total scam losses here fell to $913.1 million from a record $1.1 billion in 2024, according to annual police statistics. Total reported scam cases also dropped by more than 27 per cent to 37,308 cases.

Other new measures announced by the police are expected to help tackle online scams too.

NTU’s Lim said mandating messaging services to display the country that unsolicited calls or messages originate from will provide the necessary warning.

“If the user doesn’t know anyone from that country, the warning is an effective reality check,” said Lim. “The unknown account’s creation date must also be shown under the new rules, so that if it’s a recently created account, it’s also another red flag.”

Messaging services covered by the new rule are WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, Apple iMessage, Apple FaceTime, Google Message and Google Meet.

IRB Law’s Leong said that a new measure requiring unknown contacts to get consent from users before adding them to a group chat or channel will interrupt a common investment-scam method.

“Such groups are commonly used to manufacture credibility through fake mentors, fabricated profit screenshots and testimonials from other members. Requiring an affirmative choice interrupts that initial method,” he explained.

The new rules will kick in on Jan 31, 2027. Failure to comply will be a criminal offence under the Online Criminal Harms Act, and may result in fines of up to $1 million.

Leong said that verifying advertisers’ identities should be continuous instead of a one-time check. This is because after the initial check, the advertiser may later lose its licence, change ownership or begin promoting a different product.

He pointed out that while the new rules cover paid advertising, scammers may shift to unpaid forms, such as ordinary-looking posts, livestreams and influencer content, or approach victims through private messages and closed chat groups.

“The authorities should clarify how the rules apply to these less visible methods, so that scammers cannot avoid the safeguards simply by moving beyond paid advertising.”

Noting Australia’s and the United Kingdom’s experience in fighting online scams, Leong said that no single safeguard is likely to work in isolation. The strongest model is an ecosystem approach combining platform prevention, regulatory intelligence, rapid takedowns, banking intervention and law enforcement, he said.

Agreeing, Associate Professor Sandra Booysen from the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Law said: “What it boils down to is the need for a holistic approach that involves all the stakeholders making a contribution: payment service providers, communications and online marketplace service providers, the users of these services, and law enforcement authorities.”

For retiree Tan Kah Kang, 72, he feels safer knowing that financial ads from unlicensed advertisers will soon be blocked on selected social media platforms. “Senior citizens will be less worried about being scammed,” he said.

When contacted about how it will comply with the new measures, a Google spokesman said: “We share Singapore’s goal of keeping Singaporeans safe online, and continue to collaborate with the Government to implement pre-emptive measures across our products. This builds on the layered protections, such as proactive spam filtering and AI-powered scam detection to analyse and detect scams real-time.”

The Straits Times has contacted Telegram and Meta – which runs WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram – for comment.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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