Over $3 billion in Meta's advertising revenue is suspected of being linked to fraud.

Internal documents reveal that billions of dollars in Meta's advertising revenue in China were linked to fraudulent content, illegal gambling, pornography, and other prohibited content.

In 2024, revenue from advertising on Meta's platform in China exceeded $18 billion, accounting for more than 10% of the company's global revenue.

However, in internal documents, Meta calculated that approximately 19% of that amount, over $3 billion, came from advertising for scams, illegal gambling, pornography, and other prohibited content.

The aforementioned documents are part of a previously unpublished archive of documents collected over the past four years by Meta's finance, lobbying, engineering, and security departments.

This archive reveals Meta's efforts during that period to understand the extent of ad abuse on its platform and the company's reluctance to release patches that could undermine business and revenue.

Documents show that China accounts for approximately 25% of fraudulent advertisements and banned products on Meta's platform worldwide .

These advertisements led shoppers in Taiwan (China) to purchase counterfeit health supplements, while investors in the US and Canada were defrauded of their savings.

In an internal presentation in April 2024 to the company's safety leaders, Meta employees warned of the need for significant investment to mitigate the growing damage.

To achieve that goal, Meta has established an anti-fraud team, going far beyond previous efforts to monitor scams and other prohibited activities originating from China.

Using enhanced enforcement tools, they reduced problematic ads by about half in the second half of 2024, bringing the revenue from such ads down from 19% to 9% of total advertising revenue from China.

However, a document from late 2024 noted that the advertising enforcement team in China had been “asked to pause” their work due to a strategic shift in integrity and close scrutiny from CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Meta has disbanded its anti-fraud team focused on the Chinese market. They have also lifted the freeze on granting platform access to new Chinese advertising companies.

A document reveals that Meta has temporarily paused further anti-fraud measures that internal testing showed would be effective.

In a statement to Reuters, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the work of the anti-fraud task force from China was temporary.

He added that Zuckerberg's request to task forces working on scams and other high-risk harmful activities is to redouble their efforts to mitigate them globally, including in China.

According to Stone, as part of its standard enforcement process, Meta's automated system has blocked or removed 46 million ads sent through its Chinese business partners over the past 18 months, often before users even see them.

Meta has terminated relationships with several unnamed Chinese advertising companies due to past misconduct and will deduct commissions from Chinese partners who run excessive numbers of infringing ads.

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/hon-3-ty-usd-doanh-thu-quang-cao-cua-meta-bi-nghi-lien-quan-den-gian-lan-post1083390.vnp