It appears that despite Meta’s (formerly Facebook) public dedication to user safety, the company is generating a significant portion of its advertising revenue from scam and fraudulent ads. This revelation comes from internal financial documents obtained and reviewed by Reuters.
According to these documents, Meta projected in 2024 that approximately 10 percent of its full-year revenue would come from advertisements involving scams or banned goods. The records also highlight a massive influx of fraudulent ads related to e-commerce, investments, gambling, and medical products. These deceptive ads reportedly went largely undetected and unaddressed for about three years across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Additional documents from December 2024 revealed that Meta was showing its platform users around 15 billion so-called “higher risk” ads daily—ads that could be clearly identified as scams. These ads generated an annualized revenue of approximately $7 billion.
This isn’t the first time Meta and Facebook have faced criticism for placing profits above user safety. Many will recall the 2021 whistleblower revelations by Frances Haugen, who exposed how the company had deprioritized safeguards against toxic content and misinformation on Facebook. According to Haugen, this approach was driven by a “profit over safety” mindset, as these protections were seen as detrimental to platform engagement.
As Meta continues to dominate social media, these internal documents raise important questions about the balance it strikes between user protection and revenue generation.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/146740/meta-2024-revenue-scam-ads
