Meta earned $16 billion from scam ads last year. Here’s how to avoid being a click away from the next impulse-buy trap

Internal institution documents uncover that Meta projected earning astir 10% of its 2024 gross (roughly $16 billion) from moving advertisements for scams and banned goods crossed Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp (1).

Even much alarming: the societal media elephantine estimates that each day, its platforms amusement users an estimated 15 cardinal scam advertisements that are intelligibly fraudulent (2).

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According to documents reviewed by Reuters, for 3 years oregon longer, Meta has not adequately identified and ended the deceptive advertising, exposing billions of users to fraudulent concern and e-commerce schemes, amerciable online casinos and banned aesculapian products.

Meta's automated systems lone prohibition advertisers if they're astatine slightest 95% definite to beryllium committing fraud (3). Below that threshold, the institution simply charges fishy advertisers higher advertisement rates arsenic a punishment alternatively than removing them entirely. But this attack doesn't ever discourage the advertisement placement, inactive allowing imaginable fraudulent enactment to run, and Meta to nett from it.

The concern worsens erstwhile you click connected a scam ad. Meta's ad-personalization strategy means users who click connected fraudulent advertisements are deemed "interested" successful them and are truthful apt to spot adjacent much of them.

But this mightiness not beryllium the lone crushed the institution isn't doing much to halt the ads successful question.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone disputed the characterization, Reuters reports, stating the interior gross estimation was "rough and overly-inclusive" and included "many" morganatic ads (4).

In a statement, helium said, "Over the past 18 months, we person reduced idiosyncratic reports of scam ads globally by 58% and, truthful acold successful 2025, we've removed much than 134 cardinal pieces of scam advertisement contented (5)."

Internal documents amusement Meta imposed interior guardrails connected its trust-and-safety teams, specifically including limits connected however overmuch gross the institution was consenting to suffer by removing suspicious advertisers. If excessively galore fraudulent advertisers needed to beryllium taken down and the resulting gross nonaccomplishment exceeded that cap, the squad had to standard backmost enforcement.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, Americans mislaid much than $12.5 cardinal to fraud successful 2024, up 25% from 2023 (6). Social media platforms played an outsized role, with losses from scams initiated connected these platforms hitting $1.9 cardinal successful 2024 (7).