It looks like Facebook’s parent company is making a fortune through fraud. Meta internally projected late last year that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue — or $16 billion — from running advertising for scams and banned goods, internal company documents show.
A cache of previously unreported documents reviewed by Reuters also shows that the social-media giant, for at least three years, failed to identify and stop an avalanche of ads that exposed Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp’s billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products.
In a statement, Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the documents seen by Reuters “present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams.”
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“The assessment was done to validate our planned integrity investments – including in combatting frauds and scams – which we did,” Stone said. He added: “We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it and we don’t want it either.”
“Over the past 18 months, we have reduced user reports of scam ads globally by 58 percent and, so far in 2025, we’ve removed more than 134 million pieces of scam ad content,” Stone said.
The documents indicate that Meta’s own research suggests its products have become a pillar of the global fraud economy, with a May 2025 presentation by its safety staff estimating that the company’s platforms were involved in a third of all successful scams in the U.S.
“It is easier to advertise scams on Meta platforms than Google,” concluded an internal Meta review in April 2025 of online communities where fraudsters discuss their trade.
On average, one December 2024 document notes, the company shows its platforms’ users an estimated 15 billion “higher-risk” scam advertisements — those that show clear signs of being fraudulent — every day, with Meta earning about $7 billion in annualized revenue from this category of scam ads each year, another late-2024 document states.
The revelations about Meta’s exposure to fraudulent advertising underscore the complex tension between platform growth, monetization, and user safety. Internal documents suggesting that a significant portion of revenue may come from scam ads highlight how digital platforms can inadvertently become conduits for global fraud, raising ethical, legal, and regulatory concerns. While Meta emphasizes its ongoing investments in fraud prevention and reports measurable reductions in scam content, the scale of the problem demonstrates that enforcement and oversight remain enormous challenges.
These findings illustrate the broader challenge for social-media companies: balancing profit motives with the responsibility to protect users and maintain trust. Regulators are increasingly scrutinizing how platforms handle high-risk content, while the public is acutely aware of the risks posed by deceptive online practices.
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The regulatory pressure on Meta to do more to fight scams comes as the company, in a race with competitors, is pouring money into artificial intelligence and plans as much as $72 billion this year in overall capital expenditures.
Ultimately, the Meta case serves as a cautionary tale about the consequences of rapid platform growth without sufficiently robust safeguards, emphasizing the need for transparency, accountability, and continuous technological and policy interventions.