Meta reportedly projected 10% of 2024 sales came from scam, fraud ads
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., at a dinner with technology leaders at the White House State Dining Room on Thursday, September 4, 2025 in Washington, DC, United States. US President Donald Trump said he would impose taxes on semiconductor imports “very soon”, but Apple Inc., which has promised to increase US investments, He said that companies such as will back up their goods. Photographer: Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Will Oliver | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta It projects that 10% of its total sales in 2024, or about $16 billion, will come from running online ads for fraudulent and banned goods, according to a report published Thursday. Reuters.
Such ads included promotions of “fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products,” according to a Reuters report based on internal documents. These documents showed the company’s attempts to measure the prevalence of fake ads on apps like Facebook and Instagram.
Meta has achieved total sales of more than $164.5 billion for 2024. Last week, the company said its third-quarter sales rose 26% from a year earlier to $51.24 billion and that it raised the bottom line on its total expenses for the year by $2 billion as part of its major investments in artificial intelligence.
The Reuters report cited a December 2024 document showing Meta generated nearly $7 billion in annual sales each year from so-called “high-risk” scam ads, promotions that were clearly deceptive. Meta shows an estimated 15 billion of these high-risk scam ads to users every day, the Reuters report said, citing a separate document.
Although some documents show that Meta aims to reduce the amount of fake ads on its platform, the Reuters report also notes that other documents suggest that the company is concerned that its business projections could be affected by the sudden removal of fraudulent promotions.
A Meta spokesperson said the company responds “aggressively” to scams and scam ads on its apps. Estimates that 10% of the company’s 2024 ad sales would come from bunk bed ads were “a rough and overly inclusive estimate rather than a definitive or definitive figure; in fact, subsequent review found that most of these ads were not infringing at all,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the leaked documents present a selective perspective that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and fraud by focusing on our efforts to assess the extent of the problem, rather than the full range of actions we have taken to resolve it,” the spokesperson said.
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