Meta has projected in its internal documents that around 10% of its total revenue in 2024, approximately $16 billion, will come from placing ads for fraudulent schemes and prohibited products. This information was reported by Reuters.
Such ads included promotional materials for fake investment and trade projects, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products. The documents reviewed by Reuters reflect Meta's efforts to assess the extent of fraudulent advertising on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
Meta's total sales for 2024 are expected to exceed $164.5 billion. Last week, the company announced a 26% year-over-year increase in revenue for the third quarter, reaching $51.24 billion. Additionally, Meta raised its lower limit on projected expenses by $2 billion due to significant investments in artificial intelligence.
Reuters also cited data from a document dated December 2024, which mentioned an annual income of $7 billion from so-called "high-risk" fraudulent advertisements that are evidently misleading. It is estimated that users were shown about 15 billion of such ads daily.
While some documents indicated Meta's intention to reduce the number of fraudulent ads, other materials highlighted the company's concerns about the potential impact of abruptly removing them on financial performance.
A Meta representative stated that the company is "aggressively" combating fraudulent advertising. He noted that the estimate of 10% of revenue was "approximate and overly broad," and further analysis showed that a significant portion of ads did not violate policies. He also emphasized that the leaked documents only represent part of the company's efforts to assess the problem, not all the measures taken to address it.