Latest News Coverage

When cosmetic surgeons are accused of fake online reviews, where can people turn for accurate info? Read the Mashable article featuring ACCO expert Kathryn Dean.

Read the Washington Post article about our latest complaint to the SEC, which blames top leadership for failing to warn investors about serious problems at the company.

ACCO activists Nina Jackel of Lady Freethinker said the site had ignored efforts to get clear violations taken down. YouTube said it had removed hundreds of thousands. Read the NY Times article.

Deceptive drugs made of fentanyl are killing young people across America at an alarming rate. Watch this powerful documentary featuring ACCO members of VOID, whose children lost their lives after ingesting fake prescription pills made of illicit fentanyl through social media platforms.

llegal wildlife ads have increased on Facebook despite its steps to combat animal trafficking. Crime watch groups are calling for broad legal reforms. Read the Nat Geo article on our wildlife report.

The complaint, which was obtained by The Washington Post, includes dozens of pages of screenshots of opioids and other drugs for sale on Facebook and its photo-sharing site Instagram. Read the article.

An ancient Egyptian cat statue was recently repatriated. How the cat statue was obtained is unclear, but it is known that it was illegally smuggled. Egyptian officials estimate that tens of thousands of antiquities have been smuggled out of the country in recent years. Shawn Graham, an ACCO Founding member, notes that social media websites like Facebook and Instagram have "super-charged" efforts to sell and obtain stolen items. Read the article.

The company announced the prohibition after researchers reported that looters were using the platform to identify and sell illegally excavated antiquities. Read the New York Times article.

Facebook has banned users trading in historical artefacts on the site. It follows a campaign by academic researchers and an investigation by BBC News, exposing how items looted from Iraq and Syria were sold on Facebook.

Machine-learning software to snare scammers hawking fake COVID-19 test kits on social media is being built by a tiny startup funded by ACCO expert Dr Tim K Mackey. Read the article.

For years, Tim K Mackey has been researching the sale of opioids and illicit drugs online, tracking how dealers have used social media to push controlled substances. But over the past few weeks, he has found himself trying to track the black market for fake Covid-19 tests and treatments. Read the article.

Follow Daniel Stiles, a self-styled ape trafficking detective in Kenya, on a sting, which began on social media. Read the New York Times article.

In this investigation, ACCO member David L. Roberts developed an automated system to detect potentially illegal elephant ivory items for sale on eBay. This work is an important step towards reducing poaching. Read the report.

This investigative article by Wired looks at how Facebook Groups hawk wildlife and their products buyers across the globe. A team of experts, including ACCO Executive Director Gretchen Peters, weigh in on how to stop them. Read the article.

In this article/podcast, ACCO Executive Director Gretchen Peters describes how criminal networks operate on Facebook and are contributing to extinction of the elephant. Read the article.

Podcast by the BBC on Amr Al-Azm, who set up a network of frontline archaeologists - some of them former students and colleagues - that have been risking their lives to protect what remains of Syria's cultural heritage. Listen to the podcast.

A group that tracks looted artifacts online says that thieves in the Middle East and North Africa are taking advantage of coronavirus lockdowns to pillage archeological sites and sell their finds on online black markets. Read the article.

This catalogue by Amr Al-Azm and Katie Paul has been compiled to illustrate examples of illicit cultural goods that have in fact been stolen and marketed on Facebook. These products match the ICOM Red Lists for Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen. Read the report.