US EditionMeta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China to safeguard billions in revenue: Reuters
About 19% of Meta's $18 billion China ad revenue in 2024 came from scams and banned content, with anti-fraud efforts curtailed after CEO intervention.
- Last year, Reuters reported that 19% of Meta Platforms' $18 billion in China ad sales came from scams, illegal gambling, pornography, and other banned content.
- Meta created an anti-fraud team that briefly cut problematic ads, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg disbanded it due to revenue impact concerns, Reuters reported.
- Internal documents show an internal Meta executive wrote `The levels that you're talking about are not defensible. I don't know how anyone could think this is okay.` while Meta ignored scam ads from China despite knowing users were being defrauded.
- With Chinese advertisers growing, Reuters found such ads made up 10% of Meta Platforms’ global revenue last year.
- The trove reveals Meta studied abuse scale while resisting fixes to protect revenue, linking ad sales to problematic content and raising concerns about platform safety and ad reliability for users and advertisers by mid-2025.
18 Articles
18 Articles
Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China to safeguard billions in revenue
A Reuters investigation reveals the owner of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp decided to accept high levels of fraudulent advertisements from China. Internal company documents show Meta wanted to minimize "revenue impact" caused by cracking down on the scams.
Last year, Meta faced a disheartening conclusion about its Chinese advertising customers: much of them were defrauding Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users around the world. Although the Chinese regime bans the use of these social networks to its citizens, it allows companies in the country to advertise to foreign consumers. As a result, Meta’s advertising business thrived in China, reaching more than $18 billion in annual sales in 2024. Howev…
Meta is working with Chinese advertising agencies that specialize in illegal advertising. Both the company and the Chinese government are turning a blind eye.
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