Scams Aren’t a Bug. They’re a Revenue Stream.

Scams Aren’t a Bug. They’re a Revenue Stream.

What Meta is admitting—quietly, but clearly

Meta Platforms has effectively acknowledged something critics have warned about for years:

a significant portion of its revenue is fueled by scam and fraud-based advertising.

Roughly 10% of Meta’s total revenue—about $16 billion— is tied to ads linked to scams, fraud, and illicit activity across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

This isn’t accidental leakage.

It’s systemic.

What internal reports show

According to internal documentation and whistleblower accounts, Meta routinely allows ads connected to:

• Fraudulent e-commerce storefronts

• Fake investment and crypto schemes

• Illegal online casinos

• Banned or unapproved medical products

• Industrial-scale scam operations

The scale is difficult to overstate.

Internal estimates suggest up to 15 BILLION high-risk scam ads are shown to users every single day.

Even Meta’s own internal analysis reportedly attributes $7 billion in annualized revenue directly to these high-risk ads.

That’s money generated by amplifying criminal activity—at global scale.

The algorithmic feedback loop no one wants to discuss

The most disturbing part isn’t just that scam ads exist.

It’s what happens after you interact with one.

Former Meta safety investigators have stated that if a user clicks a scam-related ad—even once—the platform’s algorithm is likely to:

• Infer interest or vulnerability

• Increase exposure to similar ads

• Create a reinforcing loop of exploitation

In other words, victims are algorithmically profiled and fed more scams.

This isn’t just negligence.

It’s incentive alignment gone wrong.

Why this matters far beyond social media

If a bank knowingly profited from fraud, regulators would shut it down.

Yet Big Tech platforms are allowed to:

• Take a cut of scam revenue

• Claim neutrality

• Shift responsibility to users

That double standard is becoming impossible to justify.

And the fallout doesn’t stop with individual victims.

The impact on SMBs, healthcare, law firms, and schools

• SMBs lose customers to scams run on platforms they advertise on

• Healthcare patients are targeted with fake treatments and miracle cures

• Law firms deal with identity theft, financial fraud, and recovery litigation

• Schools see students and families exposed to industrialized scams

This isn’t just a consumer protection issue.

It’s an ecosystem risk.

Why “better moderation” isn’t the real fix

The problem isn’t that Meta can’t detect scam ads.

It’s that:

• Scam ads convert

• Scam ads pay

• Scam ads scale

As long as revenue incentives reward volume over safety, moderation will always lag.

You don’t fix this with more trust badges.

You fix it by changing what’s profitable.

The uncomfortable question regulators keep dodging

If regulators wouldn’t tolerate:

• Banks profiting from fraud

• Payment processors amplifying scams

• Telecoms routing criminal activity at scale

Why is Big Tech treated differently?

At some point, “platform” stops being an excuse and starts sounding like a business model.

The takeaway

Scams on social platforms aren’t slipping through the cracks.

They’re being monetized, optimized, and scaled.

Until accountability follows the money, the incentives won’t change—and neither will the outcome for users.

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