Yusaku Maezawa may appeal after losing his Meta fake ads case

What did the Tokyo court decide?

Maezawa had asked for the ads to be stopped and for 1 yen in compensation. The court accepted that the fake ads infringed his publicity rights, the right to protect the commercial value of a famous person's name and image. But it called Meta "merely a platform operator" that was not directly involved in the posts.

It also declined to order an injunction. According to reports on the ruling, Meta had stopped most of the fake ads within two days at the time. Japanese media describe this as the first court ruling on the rights of a public figure whose identity is used in fake ads.

How the case began

Ads using Maezawa's name and face, urging people to invest, had been appearing on Facebook and Instagram since at least around June 2023. His side asked Meta to remove them in August 2023 and was told the company would work on the problem. The ads kept coming, so he sued in May 2024, citing portrait rights and publicity rights. The 1 yen figure was chosen on purpose, to put the question of platform responsibility front and centre.

Why it matters beyond one man

Social media investment fraud is growing in Japan. The National Police Agency says losses in 2025 were about 128.8 billion yen, up nearly 50 percent from the year before. Ads were the most common way victims were drawn in, with 3,785 cases, and some used celebrities' images or videos without permission.

In August, seven government bodies including the police agency and the Digital Agency asked five big social platforms, Meta and Google among them, to verify advertisers' identities more strictly. Fraud victims have also sued Meta's Japanese and US entities in six district courts. The Yokohama District Court rejected one such claim in October.