Scam Ads Fueling Meta’s 10% Revenue, Reveal Internal Report
Meta is estimated to show its users around 15 billion scam advertisements every single day—ads it knows carry a "higher risk" of being fraudulent.
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[Image source: Krishna Prasad/MITSMR Middle East]
In 2024, Meta projected that about 10% of its overall annual revenue would come from running advertising for scams and banned goods, according to internal documents.
Unreported documents, accessed by Reuters, suggest that the parent company failed to identify and stop a barrage of ads that exposed Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp’s billions of users to elements such as fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products.
According to a December 2024 document, the company is estimated to show its users around 15 billion scam advertisements every single day—ads it knows carry a “higher risk” of being fraudulent.
Meta earned about $7 billion in annualized revenue from this category of scam ads each year, another document revealed.
While a substantial amount of fraud came from marketers acting suspiciously enough to be flagged by Meta’s internal warning systems, the company only banned advertisers if its automated systems predict the marketers are at least 95% certain to be committing fraud.
If Meta is still unsure but believes the advertiser is a likely scammer, it charges higher ad rates as a penalty, according to the documents.
In a statement, Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the documents seen by Reuters “present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams.”
“The assessment was done to validate our planned integrity investments – including in combating frauds and scams – which we did,” Stone said. He added: “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.”
“Over the past 18 months, we have reduced user reports of scam ads globally by 58 percent and, so far in 2025, we’ve removed more than 134 million pieces of scam ad content,” Stone said.
