Meta's Forecast on Fraudulent Advertising Schemes
According to internal documents from Meta, the company projects that around 10% of its total revenue in 2024, approximately $16 billion, will come from advertising for fraudulent schemes and prohibited products. This was reported by Reuters.
These advertisements included materials promoting fake investment and trading projects, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products. Documents obtained by Reuters show Meta's attempts to assess the scale of fraudulent advertising on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
Meta's total sales in 2024 are expected to exceed $164.5 billion. Last week, the company reported that its revenue for the third quarter rose by 26% year-on-year, reaching $51.24 billion. Additionally, Meta raised its lower estimate for projected expenses by $2 billion due to significant investments in artificial intelligence.
Reuters also cited data from a December 2024 document indicating annual revenues of $7 billion from so-called "high-risk" fraudulent ads that are evidently misleading. It is estimated that users are shown about 15 billion such ads daily.
While some documents indicated Meta's intention to reduce the number of fraudulent ads, others expressed concern about the potential impact of their abrupt removal on financial performance.
A Meta representative stated that the company is "aggressively" tackling fraudulent advertising. He mentioned that the 10% revenue estimate was "approximate and overly broad," and further analysis showed that a significant portion of the ads did not violate any rules. He also emphasized that the leak of documents only represents a fraction of the company's efforts to assess the issue, rather than all measures taken to address it.
