Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, projected that 10% of its revenue in 2024 would come from ads for scams and banned goods, according to a Reuters report. The ads reportedly promote fraudulent e-commerce and investments, illegal online gambling and the sale of banned medical products.
The Reuters report, based on internal company documents, said Meta was projected to take in about $16 billion from illicit ads. The company brought in more than $164.6 billion in overall ad sales in 2024.
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The ads
A December 2024 document reviewed by Reuters noted that Meta shows users an estimated 15 billion “higher risk” scam advertisements every day. Another document indicates Meta’s annual revenue from the high-risk category of scams totals about $7 billion.
Reuters said Meta has an internal warning system that flags ads coming from suspicious marketers. However, the company only bans advertisers if the system predicts the marketers are at least 95% certain to be committing fraud.
If an ad does not reach the 95% threshold but the warning system still marks it as suspicious, Meta charges the marketers higher rates as a penalty. Reuters said the idea is to dissuade suspect advertisers from placing ads.
Meta’s response
In a statement to Reuters, Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the internal documents “present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams.”
He said the 10% projection “was a rough and overly inclusive estimate rather than a definitive or final figure.” A subsequent review, Stone said, found that many of the ads “weren’t violating at all.”
“We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it and we don’t want it either,” Stone added.
Ongoing investigations
The report from Reuters comes amid investigations into Meta and its efforts to remove scams from its sites. The news outlet found that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is currently investigating Meta for running ads for financial scams.
In Britain, a regulator said it found Meta’s products were involved in 54% of all payment-related scam losses in 2023.
