Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams
116 comments
·November 7, 2025macNchz
fouronnes3
I don't see how the yearly tech support I do with my parents at Christmas will not one day converge to an outright ban of the internet. I am now demoing the level of sofistication of AI powered scams, telling them that it is now entirely possible they will get a VIDEO CALL from me that's not actually me asking for God knows what in a very convincing way using my face and voice. I am scared and this close to setting up a secret passphrase in case they need to tell me appart from a clone.
cj
My guess is the already-existing trend towards walled gardens will simply continue. When a public space is dangerous, people retreat into "safe" enclosed spaces.
- "Never download anything unless it's from the Apple App Store"
- "Never buy anything unless you're on amazon.com"
- "Dont use the internet outside of ChatGPT"
jerf
Yes, but observe how that for all three of the things that immediately came to your mind, you have respectively 1. a thing that still has a lot of scams in it (though it may be the best of the three) [1] 2. A thing so full of scams and fake products that using it is already a minefield (one my mother-in-law is already incapable of navigating successfully, based on the number of shirts my family has gotten with lazy-AI-generated art [2]) and 3. a thing well known for generating false statements and incorrect conclusions.
I'm actually somewhat less critical of Apple/Google/Facebook/etc. than probably most readers would be, on the grounds that it simply isn't possible to build a "walled garden" at the scale of the entire internet. It is not possible for Big Tech to exclude scammers. The scammers collectively are firing more brain power at the problem than even Big Tech can afford to, and the game theory analysis is not entirely unlike my efforts to keep my cat off my kitchen counter... it doesn't matter how diligent I am, the 5% of the time the cat gets up there and finds a tasty morsel of shredded cheese or licks some dribble of something tasty barely large enough for me to notice but constitutes a nice snack with a taste explosion for the much-smaller cat means I'm never going to win this fight. The cat has all day. I'm doing dozens of other things.
There's no way to build a safe space that retains the current size and structure of the current internet. The scammers will always be able to overpower what the walled garden can bring to bear because they're so many of them and they have at least an order of magnitude more resources... and I'm being very conservative, I think I could safely say 2 and I wouldn't be really all that surprised if the omniscient narrator could tell us it's already over 3.
[1]: https://9to5mac.com/2025/09/25/new-study-shows-massive-spike...
[2]: To forstall any AI debate, let me underline the word "lazy" in the footnote here. Most recently we received a shirt with a very large cobra on it, and the cobra has at least three pupils in each eye (depending on how you count) and some very eye-watering geometry for the sclera between it. Quite unpleasant to look at. What we're getting down the pipeline now is from some now very out-of-date models.
deaux
A little ironic when Amazon is filled to the brim with scams.
1over137
That’s a truly horrendous thought.
ceejayoz
> it is now entirely possible they will get a VIDEO CALL from me that's not actually me asking for God knows what in a very convincing way using my face and voice
Worse, your fake version will be convincingly begging on the call for God knows what while being horribly tortured. Audio versions of this are already a thing.
Noaidi
> I am scared and this close to setting up a secret passphrase in case they need to tell me apart from a clone.
I have done this already and convinced a friend to do it after her father fell victim to a scam where he was convinced the sheriffs department wanted him to pay off a fine in gift cards.
I am also concerned that one might steal a trove of texts from someone and plug it into AI which could mimic the writing and tone of someone.
malfist
This isn't a situation we accept out of other industries. You water provider doesn't get to pipe you sewage every now and again because its too expensive to moderate. We shouldn't accept it for big tech either. And we certainly shouldn't make it the responsibility of the end use to protect themselves
strogonoff
If everybody on social media was an actual paying customer of social platforms, like we pay water providers, we could demand better service and switch away to a competitor who offers it. Unfortunately, we are robbed of our ability to pay with our wallets.
the_snooze
"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product." It's an outdated way of looking at tech. Many classes of paid products (e.g., cars, streaming services, IoT, operating systems) double-dip into tracking and advertisement. Why would a business actually want to do the hard work of serving user needs when they can hedge their bets with ad revenue? Line must go up.
swiftcoder
I don't know very many people who have a choice of water providers. Generally you are stuck with whoever owns the pipes to your home. And since you don't have a lot of choice, the government tends to regulate the shit out of water providers - and I don't see we have any other real choice when it comes to too-big-to-fail social media providers either.
HPsquared
You don't generally get to choose who pipes the water to your house.
Workaccount2
We weren't robbed, we voluntarily gave it up.
Nebula is youtube that works for you. But the conversion rate from youtube-ad-viewer to nebula-subscription-payer is <1%.
kelvinjps10
We can pay with our attention, if we stopped using social media that takes advantage of us and use others that don't. They will change the way, they act.
willvarfar
(An aside, there is a lot of scandal in the UK about how the privatised water providers have been basically shitting on the public and environment, and literally discharging raw sewage because its too expensive to moderate!)
foft
Yes. If you haven’t yet read it Cory Doctorow’s new book Enshittification is well worth a read. I am still reading it but it certainly explains some of the bad practices by these major advertising/spying giants and the resulting market distortion. We need to up our game as technologists and hold our employers to account.
noir_lord
It's just another form of "socialise the costs, privatise the profits".
In any sane world we'd regular big tech far more rigorously than we do (we'd tax them more as well but that's a separate issue).
gosub100
I had a similar thought regarding OS'. Especially in they heydey of malware in the early 2000s when 3rd party apps were the only way to remove it. You don't buy a truck and accept that its wheel falls off every time you hit a bump. Therefore Microsoft should have been civilally liable for all the costs of software removal and loss of enjoyment of computers that ran Windows (along with OEMs that sold them).
bryanlarsen
GM is not liable when your wheels fall off because a criminal removed the nuts.
zoeysmithe
Water, power, etc infrastructure regulations and things like the environmental movement happened when there was more working class solidarity and the working class had more power over the capital owning class. Now the working class have been propagandized to believe "regulations bad" and have been depowered as capitalism decays and the capital owning class further takes and consolidate power. The regulations you want are impossible in this political climate and probably impossible without an extremely radical reform movement or some mass resignation or revolution of government.
I mean, lets face it, no government that makes hard right turns and has intense corruption like the USA just goes back to being a proper liberal democracy. Most likely things will get a lot worse before they even get better and on a timescale thats unpredictable. We may be talking 20+ years before any sort of baby steps towards liberal reforms are even possible on the federal level. The right has the gerrymandering, scotus, the courts, the media machine, etc. Pro-working class regulations are just not going to happen like they did in the 60s and 70s for a very long time if history is any guide.
montroser
Social media is hardly a public utility. Regulation could be part of the picture, but at some point the nanny state is the greater of evils.
swiftcoder
There's a pretty big gulf between what Facebook is currently permitted to do, and the nanny state
simpaticoder
*>They could massively reduce the volume of scams advertised on their networks
I'm not entirely sure that's true. It's equivalent to asking a platform to moderate all "harmful content" off the site. "Scam" is fundamentally subjective, just as "harm" is.
The real solution is to reform the justice system such that a citizen feeling they've been defrauded has a quick and easy process to get satisfaction for themselves and other similarly harmed people. We need a streamlined, totally online court that excels at gathering and interpreting data, and a decision in days not years. The ad networks are themselves the natural allies of such a reform, but such a change can and should start small as a pilot program at the state level. If successful, it removes the considerable legal-cost moat protecting scammers, and so it no longer makes sense to even attempt such a business, and the world becomes a slightly better place.
scott_w
> "Scam" is fundamentally subjective, just as "harm" is.
From the article:
> Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams and banned goods, Reuters reports
I think we can agree that there's no "subjective" situation when a product is banned.
> The ad networks are themselves the natural allies of such a reform
The article (and the person you're replying to) point out that a significant portion of Meta's revenue comes from such scams. I'm really struggling to see how they're "natural allies" and not "antagonists" here. You're going to have to show me some research that backs up your claim because it flies in the face of the available information.
zoeysmithe
Scams are absolutely not subjective and capitalism fails at every level without regulation like this. Your comment is very libertarian housecat coded.
Workaccount2
The answer isn't ad blocking, the answer is paying directly and in full (so no need to subsidize cost with ads) for the service.
I cannot wrap my head around how generally intelligent people are completely blind to this. I guess 20 years of ad-block-is-the-norm has left people totally confused about internet monetization. I've never encoutered a problem that has such a clear answer, and that so many intelligent people get totally spun around the axle on.
We need to start paying for ad-free services. Wake up.
vintermann
Facebook has made it very clear that they don't want you to do this: you can pay for ad-free (I believe it's because they're legally obliged to offer that as a result of some things they'be done and deals they've made), but the cost is easily 100 times what they can make directly on ads for me. The only conclusion can be that they place an immensely high indirect value on serving me ads.
swiftcoder
> We need to start paying for ad-free services. Wake up.
Where are all these ad-free services everyone keeps talking about? Social media companies don't even find it worth it to offer an ad-free plan last I checked...
Workaccount2
If people demanded ad-free paid services with the same vigor that they evangelize ad-blocking, we would have it.
Noaidi
This would create a two tiered social commons however. Someone like me, homeless and on disability, what could I afford? Where would my word be heard?
It could also create "free" platforms, funded by billionaires, to control the speech on the platform.
The answer is a communal, government owned social media platform, that mimics the rules of the town square. in the US, this includes the same 1st amendment rights. This would allow equal access to everyone's voice.
IMHO, social media should not exists at all. It is too huge and too fast for our tiny brains.
ferguess_k
Just curious what password manager I should use? I'm considering using a password manager instead of the Google ones and gradually switch all passwords to generated ones instead the one I usually use. Searched through HN for the last 6 months but found just too many posts about PM.
542458
I believe Bitwarden, 1Password, or the stock Apple one are the typically recommended ones. Bitwarden is free (and can be self-hosted), 1Password is paid and has a slightly nicer UX, and the Apple one is good but requires you to be in their ecosystem. I personally use Bitwarden and have had no issues.
ferguess_k
Thanks, I heard about the 1Password leak, but just checked online and looks their it's just their Okta system, not client info?
jeffbee
The Google one is quite good if you use Chrome anyway.
ferguess_k
Thanks, I use Firefox but I did save all of my past passwords in Google password already. So I guess I could keep it. I might switch anyway though as I'm switching to Brave.
bluGill
I don't understand why the big advertisers don't scream about this. Facebook gets money from whoever, but the scams dilute the effectiveness of real companies that are not trying to scam you.
vintermann
Do they? The difference may not be so clear cut always. A policy which got rid of scammy ads might get rid of a lot of "real companies" ads too.
vintermann
Facebook is one of the few pages my ad-blocker can't handle. In part I think this is because they do it differently by country, but mostly it's because Facebook makes a ton of effort to make it hard to recognize what's an ad from the page code.
redwood
Is there a top recommended ad blocker that has strong security Bona fides you recommend for android?
macNchz
I don’t use Android, but I understand uBlock Origin works with Firefox on it, which is kind of the gold standard on desktop, given the other browsers now restrict extensions in ways that make ad blockers less effective.
DavidPeiffer
Yes, this works very well. The element zapper interface is a little challenging or I intuitive, but just using a default block list is so much better than using the internet without any ad blocking.
coldpie
Use Firefox and install the uBlock Origin extension in Firefox.
I also suggest turning on the Annoyances and Cookie Banner filters in the uBO settings. They get rid of many popups.
Blocking in-app ads is a whole other ballgame. I don't have any suggestions for that.
Larrikin
You can actively poison your ad profile by using AdNauseum, which clicks on all the ads and then throws away the response. The actual ads are still hidden using UBO under the hood.
You can also use AdGuard+Tailscale to get DNS blocking of all ads on all devices. Tailscale will let you block in app ads, even on your phone even when on the cell network.
I combine both to block as much as possible.
kelvinjps10
Besides Firefox and unlock, I recommend rethink and the block lists, it will block ads in other apps.
Noaidi
Get Mullvad VPN. It has ad and many other DNS blockers built into the app.
c0brac0bra
Brave Browser
cjonas
At least 50% of the YouTube promoted videos I get are crypto currency scams where some paid actor walks you though deploying an eth contract that empties your wallet. I report every one and nothing changes :(
lm28469
I get 50% AI generated tai chi promising strength gain, weight loss and enlightenment, the other 50% israel sponsored ads assuring me people in gaza are not starving at all and completely healthy
bluedino
Remember broadcast TV, early in the morning or late at night?
Infomercials for all kinds of scams from buying real estate with zero down, crap products that didn't work...
ben_w
Had a few of those too.
Mostly, I'm getting things like German ads for my local German supermarket (that I would've gone to anyway without the ad) dubbed badly into English with an AI that can't tell how to pronounce the "." in a price, plus a Berlin-specific "pay less rent" company that I couldn't use even if I wanted to because I don't rent.
But when I get 30 seconds of ads a minute into a video that had 30 seconds of ads before I could start watching… I don't care what the rest of the video was going to be about, I don't want to waste my life with a 30:60:30:… pattern of adverts and "content" whose sole real purpose is now to keep me engaged with the adverts. (This is also half of why I don't bother going to Facebook, every third post is an ad, although those ads can't even tell if I'm a boy or a girl, which language I speak, nor what my nationality is, and the first-party suggested groups are just as bad but grosser as they recently suggested I join groups for granny dating, zit popping, and Elon Musk).
Workaccount2
It's because google has no profile on you, likely because you block all tracking. Which is fine, but at least understand that it's not the norm.
Normal non-tech users (from watching youtube at friends houses or at my parents), mostly get ads for fabric softener and cat litter.
jeffbee
Yeah, it's wild how poorly the hackernewses understand this. If the ad platform has few signals for targeting, but it does have the available signals of you're using a weird VPN or tor, and a weird user agent on an uncommon platform, then it's just going to assume you're a crypto loser like the other people sharing those traits.
Kelteseth
Same. About half of Youtube ads that I get on my AppleTV (no adblock there sadly) are now AI generated scam products.
r0fl
It’s crazy how bad it has gotten and some channels have like 10 ads if it’s a long enough video
YouTube premium lite has been a game changer. Otherwise I would have given up on watching on Apple TV
gchamonlive
Signs of collapse
iso1631
My TV has ad block for youtube. I pay 20 minutes salary per month and see no adverts at all, on TV, on phone, on computer.
I never understand why well-paid HN commentators refuse to pay for their entertainment.
On the web at large, sure use an ad blocker, there's no choice there. There is on youtube though.
null
ruszki
I think it really depends on how much you use it. For example, there is no way that I would pay for Facebook. It annoys me greatly that I’m forced to use it a few times per year, and I have to sell all of my data for it, but unfortunately I don’t pay just to avoid data gathering about me, because it happens anyway, no matter what I do.
But I pay happily for YouTube, because I use it daily, and my home country’s propaganda was annoying enough to make it worth.
JohnConnorX99
Why do you provide free labor to Google by reporting those ads? Just block the adds...
stronglikedan
Even better, block them and click them all with the Adnauseam extension.
timpera
Same for me, and the worst thing is that they always take 3 days to review my report and delete the scam.
r0fl
YouTube on Apple TV was one of the last places I saw ads. Ad blockers on browser and iPhone and all other streaming providers I pay for have no ads
Paying for YouTube premium lite (I think it’s new) has been the best thing in ages! The toxic ads are finally gone!
piva00
YouTube Premium Lite used to exist years ago, then they discontinued it in 2024 (I know because I used to be a very happy subscriber), now they brought it back but only in a few selected markets[0].
Google products' bullshit as usual, I never needed/wanted YouTube Music and the other bloat they wanted to force me to pay for, I was happily paying to not have ads...
[0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6307365?sjid=93860...
koakuma-chan
What if you take YouTube to court
jasonlotito
For what it's worth, I see no crypto videos. YouTube recommends stuff I find enjoyable (lots of sketch comedy, TTRPG videos, interesting documentary style stuff, BTS on video game development, etc). I really have to wonder if your tastes align with crypto currency scams.
That being said, I am paying for Premium, so I wonder if you are, and if you are blocking ads.
infecto
We are talking about ads and promoted videos. Nothing to do with what it is recommending unless I am entirely conflating the root of this subject. If that is true, then of course you would never have seen these as a premium user.
Scam videos are the chum box ads of the video world. Usually the lowest cost ads and so if you block tracking or are viewing a video in a private session you will have the highest chance of hitting these ads.
mavhc
Only see ads when watching youtube via chromecast, but they're all from real brands, holiday companies, cars, google pixel, etc
notahacker
Certainly puts the £3m lawsuit settlement with Martin Lewis (UK consumer financial advice guru who sued because he's the go-to fake endorsement of any scam product targeting Britons using Facebook ads) into perspective.
No wonder scammers are still spamming his likeness all over Facebook paid ads even though it's technically trivial for them to algorithmically flag it
wahnfrieden
The news here per https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/bombshell-report... is that Meta set an internal policy that scammers above 0.15% of Meta’s revenue must be protected from any flagging. It’s not a technical challenge. It’s something they desire to maintain and have codified.
miyuru
Original Reuters article: https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...
mrweasel
That probably depends on your definition of a scam, but it seems fairly low. Many products and services advertised online just skirts the border of being scams or fraud.
croisillon
i came to say that, even outdoor advertising probably gets 10 or 20% revenue from snake oil
chrischen
Agreed. At best most of the stuff I ended up buying from an Instagram ad turned out to be oversold or overpromised and underdelivered. While not a scam outright, it's sort of training me to avoid buying anything from ads...
piva00
It got so bad that even non-tech savvy people around me learnt to do a lot of research about any product shown on Instagram ads.
To me any product advertised on Instagram, or through YouTubers sponsorships, have become synonymous with overpromised bullshit if not outright scams. Every single time I see a sponsorship deal on a YouTube video I do some research just to validate it, and the vast majority of it are outright shitty products.
It's been working great as a signal of what products not to buy.
carlosjobim
Those are the other 90% of Meta revenue. Pure criminal fraud is 10%.
wslh
> That probably depends on your definition of a scam, but it seems fairly low.
That probably depends on your definition of a scam but I'd argue we need to resynchronize that definition. They are scams, because the people behind them know what they're saying is plainly false, and they exploit the explosion of digital networks (like ads) to spread those lies. In the 20th century, the channels for scams were far narrower and easier to pinpoint.
samlinnfer
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere travelling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
1970-01-01
I don't think the analogy applies the same way. Meta simply choose to be evil not because it costs less overall but because they're unable to provide/filter actually useful ads to consumers. The rear diff is instead a filthy window but consumers don't sue for better quality because everything else works good enough and those that do crash could have cleaned the windows themselves.
getnormality
As my children become old enough to have more unfettered internet access, I plan to tell them the lessons of my experience: that all online ads are for products that range from disappointing to fraudulent, so do your best to completely ignore them. I would hope that every parent does the same and we end up with a generation that dries up the revenue for this sick racket.
I suppose the next move by advertisers will be corrupting all the other metrics of quality that I rely on. At that point, paywalled services like Consumer Reports (which has its own massive limitations) may be the only relatively authentic signals of quality left in the digital world.
A convergence to that equilibrium can be predicted based on it having already happened in the financial advice industry. The dictum that "if it's free, you're the product" is just as true of old-school in-person finance as it is of the digital world, except in finance the exploitative free system has been carefully carved out by decades of industry-honed regulation.
balderdash
I wonder what their definition of scammy is? I bet it’s pretty narrow.
procaryote
It catches abouth 10% of scams ;)
stronglikedan
Probably limited to strictly criminal scams so as to avoid liability.
IronyMan100
If i Look at all the finfluences and "get thin in 30h with my cale diet eBook"-influencer, i though it was substantially more than 10%.
dkdcio
ban digital advertisement
mk89
Imagine going in the streets as a normal human being and advertising these companies (the scammers, I mean).
You would never see the light again, after fighting countless battles with lawyers (rightly so!), ending up in prison.
But these guys just can exploit it, because that's what they do, and literally never be accountable for it.
jeffbee
10% scams is bush league rookie stats. They gotta pump that up to play in the same league as Nextdoor.
Alongside a password manager and keeping things up to date, using an ad blocker is truly a foundational security practice these days. The big advertising players simply have all of the wrong incentives to control this problem. They could massively reduce the volume of scams advertised on their networks, but it’d be worse for them on two fronts: they’d have to pay for more moderation, and they’d lose billions in revenue in the process. Shoulder surfing while a non-savvy user browses Facebook or YouTube without an ad blocker and engages with obviously fraudulent ads is painful.