“Sociable” is the newest commentary on essential social media developments and trends from industry expert Andrew Hutchinson of Social Media Today.
Yeah, this seems bad.
According to a brand new report from Reuters, Meta has estimated that around 10% of its overall annual revenue, equating to around $16 billion, comes from scam promoting, and/or promotions for banned goods.
The revelation was specified by internal company documents, which Reuters’ journalists were capable of access, presenting the scope of scam ad activity in Meta’s apps, and the profit that the corporate derives from such.
As reported by Reuters:
“On average, one December 2024 document notes, the corporate shows its platforms’ users an estimated 15 billion ‘higher risk’ scam advertisements – those who show clear signs of being fraudulent – daily.”
Which will come as little surprise to Facebook and Instagram users.
Many people have issued many complaints about scam ads and promotions across Meta’s apps, which regularly seemingly fall on deaf ears, with no response to user reports.
Of course, at Meta’s scale, it might probably’t be expected to reply to each report that it receives. But the interior documents show that Meta is just not only aware of the problem, but could also be actively ignoring it, resulting from the quantity of revenue these scam promotions herald.
Which, if correct, must also irritate all Meta advertisers, based on charts like this:
Meta’s ad costs are rising, which is a mirrored image of demand. Which implies that on top of the direct revenue Meta gets from scam ads, their very presence would also driving up costs for all advertisers, which could mean that Meta’s actually gleaning far more overall revenue from this element.
Also this:
“The documents further note that users who click on scam ads are prone to see more of them due to Meta’s ad-personalization system, which tries to deliver ads based on a user’s interests.”
Yeah, this is just not report for Meta, with the notes also indicating that Meta refuses to act on likely scams unless its system can determine that they’re indeed scams “with 95% accuracy.”
And with increasingly more people falling victim to online scams, that is already becoming a much bigger focus for enforcement.
According to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, which monitors scam activity, victims around the globe lost a minimum of a trillion dollars to scams within the last yr alone. According to its “2025 Global State of Scams” report, around 23% of adults globally have had money stolen by scammers, with that figure rising to 41% in South America and Africa.
Given the scope of such, and Meta’s global presence, you’ll be able to bet that many regulators, in lots of regions, are already searching for more info on these reports.
Meta, meanwhile, has refuted the claims, noting that these internal documents weren’t intended for public consumption, and usually are not necessarily indicative of the complete scope of the problem.
Meta has also pointed to its evolving scam ad detection processes, which have reduced user reports of scam ads globally by 58% in 2025.
As such, possibly the situation isn’t as bad because it was. But again, it’s not search for Meta, and it could find yourself seeing the corporate cop significant fines for knowingly allowing such, if the claims are correct.
But nevertheless, if those fines are lower than what it generates from these ads…
Again, it seems very likely that regulators will probably be poring over these documents and claims, and digging into Meta’s ad business, to seek out more evidence that supports this data. And presumably, any advantageous would need to exceed what Meta’s gaining from these ads to make it effective.
It might be one other major blow for the corporate’s repute, and will also slow its investment in its next-level bets. But nevertheless, possibly Zuckerberg’s renewed ties with Trump will help to ease scrutiny, and reduce any related impact.
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