Scandal Unveiled: Leaked Documents Reveal Meta's Multi-Billion Dollar Earnings from Scam Advertisements

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Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is projected to generate approximately 10% of its 2024 revenue, estimated to be around $16 billion, from advertisements promoting scams and prohibited products, according to internal forecasts revealed by Reuters.

Despite its vast resources, Meta has struggled to identify and eliminate what has been described as a “deluge of ads” that potentially expose billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce ventures, investment scams, illegal online gambling, and the sale of unauthorized medical items, Reuters reported.

According to a document from December 2024 cited by Reuters, Meta displayed an average of 15 billion “higher risk” scam advertisements daily. Another internal report from the same period suggested that the company annually garners about $7 billion from such deceptive ads.

Further documentation indicated that despite awareness of major offenders, labeled internally as the “scammiest scammers,” Meta was slow to act. Certain major advertisers, referred to as “High Value Accounts,” were reportedly allowed to accumulate more than 500 violations without facing shutdowns.

Additionally, Reuters discovered that Meta’s ad-personalization mechanism, which aims to tailor advertisements to user interests, inadvertently increased the likelihood of users encountering more scam ads after clicking on one.

A Meta spokesperson told NewsNation the 10% revenue projection from policy-violating ads cited in the report was “rough and overly-inclusive,” not a “definitive or final figure.”

The spokesperson said the company aggressively fights fraud and scams, noting that over the last 15 months, reports from users about scam ads have declined by more than 50%.

“Unfortunately, the leaked documents present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams by focusing on our efforts to assess the scale of the challenge, not the full range of actions we have taken to address the problem,” the spokesperson said.

Meta reported more than $50 billion in ad revenue last quarter — up 26% year over year — bringing its total so far this year to $138 billion.