Fake copyright attack on BizNews over Banxso report
A bogus complaint to Google made it remove from its search engines a BizNews article on Banxso
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By Chris Steyn
A bogus complaint to Google made it remove from its search engines a BizNews article on Banxso, the trading platform has come under fire for benefiting from deep fake ads featuring billionaires Elon Musk, Johann Rupert and Nicky Oppenheimer.
The BizNews report contains confirmation from both Banxso and the Financial Services Conduct Authority (FSCA) that an investigation had been launched into the company – after scores of investors who clicked on the ads reported losses totalling millions.
This is the article: Banxso confirms FSCA probe
Despite it being an entirely original story based on confirmatory statements made by both Banxso and the FSCA, BizNews received a "Notice of DMCA removal from Google Search".
It reads: "To: Webmaster of https://url.za.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/UVRNCqjXDZtqn5fZCbd6?domain=biznews.com/, Google has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that some of the material found on your site allegedly infringes upon the copyrights of others. We're in the process of removing the allegedly unlawful materials from Google Search results.
"The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, may be found on the website of Lumen, a third-party aggregator of legal complaint notices, at https://lumendatabase.org/notices/42638671."
A click on that link reveals that the complaint against BizNews was laid by Vermont Media LLP in the United States, with a false claim of copyright infringement relating to an article allegedly published priorly on brusselsherald.com
BizNews has laid a complaint with Google as it appears that it is being manipulated into removing offending articles from its search engine by entities that have offending stories "pre-published" elsewhere and then crying copyright infringements. And Banxso has been asked for comment.
A similar complaint has been laid against a Moonstone's article, also about the FSCA investigation into Banxso. This time the complainant is Fossil Wood Media LLP, also in the United States, and with a claim that Moonstone infringed on the copyright of an article "published" in the Manchester Herald.
Meanwhile, another media house, Moneyweb, also received a DMCA Takedown Notice last week, shortly after publishing its latest article on Banxso.
Moneyweb has been under cyber attack since the publication of its first story on Banxso.
In his comment, veteran fraud investigstor Bart Henderson says: "What started out as an attack on the South African investing public, through deep fake false advertising benefitting Banxso, has escalated into cynical attacks on our national media using fake copyright claims, to take down articles written to expose their conduct, and their direct links to the Banc de Binary scandal.
"These claims of copyright infringement appear to be, not only dishonest, but bordering on the fraudulent, and consistent with a pattern of conduct that has come to define the Banxso and Banc de Binary scandals.
Conduct that cannot be condoned."
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