It appears that despite Meta’s (formerly Facebook) public commitment to user safety across its social platforms, the company is reportedly making a significant amount of advertising revenue from scam and fraudulent ads. This revelation comes from internal financial documents obtained and reviewed by Reuters.
According to these documents, Meta internally projected in 2024 that approximately 10% of its full-year revenue would be generated by allowing advertisements that are scams or promote banned goods. Other documents detail a massive influx of fraudulent ads, including e-commerce, investment, gambling, and medical product advertisements, that reportedly went undetected and unaddressed for about three years on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Further reports from December 2024 indicate that Meta was displaying around 15 billion “higher risk” ads daily—ads that could easily be identified as scams. These ads accounted for an estimated $7 billion in annualized revenue for the company.
This is far from the first time Meta—previously Facebook—has faced criticism for putting profits ahead of user safety. Many will remember when whistleblower Frances Haugen came forward in 2021, before Facebook’s rebranding as Meta. Haugen’s testimony revealed that the company relaxed safeguards against toxic content and misinformation because those measures negatively impacted user engagement, highlighting a pattern of “profit over safety” within the organization.
These latest findings shed further light on the ongoing tension between Meta’s safety promises and its business practices, raising important questions about user trust and platform accountability moving forward.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/146740/meta-2024-revenue-scam-ads
