The news that Meta netted $16bn in revenue from running fraudulent ads, including from illegal online casinos, came as no surprise, according to BetBlocker’s Founder, Duncan Garvie.
He told SlotBeats that “dubious” businesses across a variety of fields have sought to exploit “absent regulation and lax oversight” of social media to launch marketing campaigns that would not be allowed elsewhere.
“These gaps in supervision are allowing bad actors to defraud people and to target young people with damaging products. We’ve watched as an entire generation has been indoctrinated into gambling on streaming platforms, as adult activities are normalised for younger and younger people,” he explained.
A Reuters investigation revealed that Meta internally projected that 10% of its overall revenue in 2024 came from running ads for scams and banned goods.
Leaked documents seen by Reuters revealed that billions of users across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have been exposed to “fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products” due to Meta’s failings.
According to the documents, Meta is slow to respond to suspicious ads and only bans them if its automated system predicts a 95% or higher chance of fraud. In certain cases, some ‘high value accounts’ racked up more than 500 strikes without being shut down.
“It is critical that governments around the world get to grips with these businesses and engage in far more robust oversight of how these businesses comport themselves,” implored Garvie.
“The social media companies are goliaths in the modern world, and can exert huge sway over public perception and the democratic process.”
Earlier this year, a report by the All India Gaming Federation found that Facebook ads were fuelling the black market in the country, with unlicensed betting platforms getting 1.6 billion visits over a three-month period.
In September, the Malaysian government also called Meta out on its prevalence of black market gambling ads.
Meta has acknowledged that it will face regulatory fines for these fraudulent ads, which it anticipates will be up to $1bn.
However, in a statement to SlotBeats, the social media giant lamented the “selective view” of the documents 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.”
A spokesperson 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.
“Scammers are persistent criminals whose efforts, often driven by ruthless cross-border criminal networks that operate on a global scale, continue to grow in sophistication and complexity. As scam activity becomes more persistent and sophisticated, so do our efforts.”