Japanese regulators want to see real efforts to take down scam ads on Meta platforms but with mounting pressure, 2024 company documents, obtained by Reuters, reveal Meta’s attempt to temporarily disguise the problem.
Often powered by AI, the ads can be fraudulent traps into investment schemes and fake product flogs. Meta has partly listened and blocked volumes of offensive ads; however, trying to curtail the scale of fraudulent advertising has made some “undiscoverable” by the authorities.
Big tech platforms are a hive of AI content and festering scams despite constantly reviewing and advancing their cybersecurity protections. The pendulum swings between the fraudsters and Meta making an advance so there is always a seismic level of threat. Meta, to protect millions of revenue generated by advertising, has lagged behind government instructions to crack down on the problem.
Through Meta’s publicly searchable library of ads from Facebook and Instagram, they were found to be hiding some ads from the “transparent” search filter knowing regulators were using it to assess their “effectiveness at tackling scams”. They used common searches to find the fraudulent ads appearing and deleted them to clean up their directory. Whilst deleting some clear scams, it also gave the impression the volume of these ads active on Meta was much lower.
The documents show a reactive approach to bad PR and resisting regulation by lawmakers. The financial repercussions to Meta have been minimal whilst they have selectively adopted verification and blocked ads in some markets. Other markets have recovered the revenue takings. Regulators are pushing for social media companies to adopt universal advertiser verification.
Meta’s spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters they did not set out to mislead by removing scam ads from the library, and “to suggest otherwise is disingenuous”. Advertiser verification, he said, is only one measure the company uses to eliminate scams.“Meta teams regularly check the Ad Library to identify scam ads because when fewer scam ads show up there that means there are fewer scam ads on the platform,” Stone said.“We set a global baseline and aggressive targets to drive down scam activity in countries where it was greatest, all of which has led to an overall reduction in scams on platform” – in reality, a 50% reduction in user reported scams.
