A 2025 Report Showed Meta Earned $7 Billion A Year From Scam Ads
Meta has admitted to earning significant revenue from advertisements that promote scams and illegal goods. Internal documents suggest the company generates billions annually from these high-risk ads despite efforts to combat fraud.
Why it matters
This raises critical questions about the accountability of social media giants in policing their platforms and the ethical implications of profit-driven content moderation.
Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta on Wednesday admitted before the government that a lot of money had been paid for "boosting a certain type of content", sources told NDTV. The admission is rare, but reports claiming the US-based company earns revenue by hosting illegal content on its social media platforms aren't.In November last year, Reuters cited secret company documents to report the company had internally projected the previous year that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue from hosting advertisements for scams and banned goods.The report noted that Meta failed to identify and halt ads that promoted fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned products.A December 2024 document, accessed by Reuters, claimed the Zuckerberg-led firm showed a whopping 15 billion "higher risk" scam advertisements per day to social media consumers.
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