Meta makes billions from scam ads while users left to fend for themselves

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Turns out those weird get-rich-quick pitches and deep-fake celebrity endorsements clogging up your Facebook and Instagram feeds aren’t just a nuisance—they’re a full-blown money machine for Meta.

Internal documents reveal that the company expects scam and banned-product ads to make up a staggering 10% of its annual ad revenue for 2024, or about $1.6 billion, according to Reuters.

Meta’s staff routinely tags many of these ads as high risk or outright fraudulent, but that hasn’t stopped the checks from clearing.

Meta knows those scam ads are fake and takes the cash anyway

The cash flow is eye-watering: one late-2024 internal memo estimated that Meta rakes in roughly $7 billion a year from what it blandly calls “high risk” ads. That could mean up to $3.5 billion in just six months, as first reported by Yahoo Finance.

Add it all up, and the social behemoth may be snagging more from scam ads than from its much-hyped pivots into the metaverse.

This isn’t just a handful of con artists slinging fake Ray-Bans on the side; entire countries have built empires off Meta’s platform.

For example, internal audits labeled China as the leading “scam exporting nation,” responsible for around a quarter of Meta’s global scam and banned-product ads, according to Fortune.

What’s Meta doing about it? Not nearly enough.

The company says it works to weed out fraud, but whistleblowers and leaked docs make it clear Meta only polices scam ads lightly—just enough for a good headline, but not so much that revenue takes a hit.

Anti-fraud initiatives in China—where most of the scam ad money is coming from—fizzled out almost as soon as they were launched, as detailed by Reuters.

When publishers and journalists have tried to hold Meta accountable, the company’s go-to shield is Section 230: the US law that lets platforms avoid responsibility for most user-generated content, even if it’s a scam, according to KCRW.

Some publishers are now suing Meta over fraudulent ads that hijack their brands in a bid to force stricter controls, as Emarketer reports.

Meanwhile, regular users—and sometimes even journalists—get hit with phishing links, lost money, or identity theft.

Scam ads fund Meta more than the metaverse ever could

Consumer protection groups argue Meta has done way too little to stop the carnage, claiming the scope of scams is so massive that most victims don’t even realize they’re being conned, as noted by Consumer Reports.

At the end of the day, Meta’s official stance is that it cares about user safety…but only as long as it doesn’t dent its bottom line.

As long as fraudsters are willing to pay, it looks like those flashy scam ads are here to stay—leaving users to wade through the mess, one shady click at a time.

Editor’s note: We reached out to Facebook for comment, but didn’t hear a response at the time of publishing. We’ll update the post if we get something back.

Kevin Raposo

Kevin is KnowTechie's founder and executive editor. With over 15 years of blogging experience in the tech industry, Kevin has transformed what was once a passion project into a full-blown tech news publication. Shoot him an email at kevin@knowtechie.com.