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Meta shows users 15 billion “higher risk” advertisements a day, which show clear signs of potentially being fraudulent, making billions in the process, according to new internal documents revealed by Reuters.
Despite ventures to broaden its business model, like its entrance into the AR space with Meta Ray-Bans, the tech giant still gets the vast majority of its revenue from selling online advertising on sites like Facebook and Instagram.
Meta allegedly earns roughly $7 billion in revenue every year from these types of potentially fraudulent ads, which can include ads for crypto scams, counterfeit medical products, and unlicensed casinos, another late 2024 document states.
In fact, the documents show that Meta predicted in late 2024 that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue, or $16 billion, from advertising fraudulent products. Though this figure also included indirect scams, such as fraudsters directly messaging you on Instagram or WhatsApp. Meanwhile, a May 2025 presentation by its safety team estimated that the company’s platforms “were involved in a third of all successful scams in the US.”
The internal documents showed that Meta’s moderation process when it comes to dangerous advertisements has plenty of room for error. According to the reports, Meta’s AI systems will only block an ad request if its AI determines there is more than a 95% chance of the ad being fraudulent.
Meta allegedly charges higher pricing for running these “higher-risk” ads which show some signs of potentially being a scam, but don’t reach the 95% threshold. High-value accounts, which spend large amounts on running ads, get up to 500 “strikes” before being banned, according to Reuters’ sources.
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In addition, Meta’s ad-personalization system may also be working against the interests of users. Users who click on scam ads frequently are likely to see more of them in the future due to this personalization, because Meta’s ad-personalization system serves ads depending on what the user seems interested in.
Some former Meta employees are calling for action from regulators to help fight the issue. Sandeep Abraham, a former Meta safety investigator, told Reuters: “If regulators wouldn’t tolerate banks profiting from fraud, they shouldn’t tolerate it in tech,” Abraham said.
Though scam ads are undoubtedly a serious issue for Meta platforms—it’s not exactly the only tech firm with a problem. Earlier this year, Google announced it suspended over 39 million ad accounts worldwide due to suspicions of fraudulent activities in 2024, and removed over five billion ads, a year-on-year rise of over 300%. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s X has come clean about attempts by an organized cybercrime ring to bribe staff in an attempt to reactivate scam accounts peddling dubious cryptocurrencies.
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I’m a reporter covering weekend news. Before joining PCMag in 2024, I picked up bylines in BBC News, The Guardian, The Times of London, The Daily Beast, Vice, Slate, Fast Company, The Evening Standard, The i, TechRadar, and Decrypt Media.
I’ve been a PC gamer since you had to install games from multiple CD-ROMs by hand. As a reporter, I’m passionate about the intersection of tech and human lives. I’ve covered everything from crypto scandals to the art world, as well as conspiracy theories, UK politics, and Russia and foreign affairs.
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