Hong Kong tech and telecoms giants unite to combat online fraud

Hong Kong’s major social media, messaging platform providers and telecoms firms have pledged to strengthen checks on advertisers’ identities and remove fraudulent advertisements embedded with phishing links.

Seven social media or messaging platforms and six telecommunications companies have joined the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s (HKMA) Anti-scam Consumer Protection Charter 3.0.

The initiative commits them to proactively detecting fraud on their platforms and networks, as well as cooperating with the HKMA and other financial regulators.

“To combat these evolving threats, it is crucial to collaborate with technology and telecommunications partners to tackle the problem at the platform level,” Eddie Yue Wai-man, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, said at the charter’s launch ceremony on Wednesday.

The seven participants from the technology sector were Douyin, Google, Meta, Microsoft, WeChat, Weibo and RedNote, while the six from the telecommunications industry were China Mobile Hong Kong, China Unicom (Hong Kong) Operations, HGC Global Communications, HKT, Hutchison Telecommunications and SmarTone Mobile Communications.

The participants pledged to adhere to six principles to combat fraud on their platforms.