Internal documents from Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) project the company could earn up to $16 billion from advertising for scams and banned goods, representing an estimated 10% of its overall annual revenue. These documents, created between 2021 and 2025 and reviewed by Reuters, highlight the scale of fraudulent advertising on Meta’s platforms and the company’s internal struggle to address the issue due to its significant revenue impact.
Key Figures and Financial Impact
The documents reveal concrete numbers quantifying the scale and financial benefit of scam advertisements on Meta’s platforms:
- Total Projected Revenue from Scams (2024): Meta internally projected it would earn approximately 10% of its overall annual revenue—or about $16 billion—from running advertising for scams and banned goods.
- Annualized Revenue from “Higher Risk” Scam Ads: A late 2024 document states Meta earns about $7 billion in annualized revenue from a category of scam ads that show clear signs of being fraudulent (“higher risk” ads).
- Daily “Higher Risk” Scam Ads: On average, the company shows its platforms’ users an estimated 15 billion “higher risk” scam advertisements every day (per a December 2024 document).
- Anticipated Regulatory Fines: One internal document anticipates regulatory penalties for scam ads could reach up to $1 billion, a figure that a separate document suggests is almost certainly exceeded by the revenue Meta generates from high-risk scam ads alone. Specifically, Meta earns $3.5 billion every six months from the portion of scam ads that “present higher legal risk.”
Enforcement and Strategic Hesitancy
The internal documents reveal details about Meta’s ad enforcement policies that contribute to the ongoing prevalence of scams:
- High Ban Threshold: Meta only bans advertisers if its automated systems predict the marketers are at least 95% certain to be committing fraud.
- Penalty Pricing: If the company suspects an advertiser is a scammer but the certainty is below 95%, Meta charges higher ad rates as a penalty to dissuade them, effectively profiting from potentially fraudulent accounts.
- Ad Personalization Impact: Users who click on scam ads are likely to see more of them due to Meta’s ad-personalization system, which targets ads based on a user’s interests.
- Involvement in Scams: A May 2025 presentation by Meta’s safety staff estimated that the company’s platforms were involved in a third of all successful scams in the U.S.
- Competitor Comparison: An April 2025 internal review concluded that “It is easier to advertise scams on Meta platforms than Google.”
Meta’s Response and Regulatory Pressure
Meta spokesman Andy Stone disputed the $16 billion projection, calling the internal estimate “rough and overly-inclusive” and stating the true number was lower as it included “many” legitimate ads. He declined to provide an updated figure. Stone highlighted that Meta’s efforts have reduced user reports of scam ads globally by 58% over the past 18 months, and they removed more than 134 million pieces of scam ad content so far in 2025.
However, the internal documents show Meta’s leadership acknowledging that regulatory fines are certain and indicating a concern that abrupt reductions in scam advertising revenue could negatively affect business projections.
The continuing revelations underscore the pressure on Meta to balance its massive investment in AI with aggressive efforts to protect users and adhere to rising global regulatory demands against online fraud.
Key Highlights:
- Massive Revenue Projection: Internal Meta documents projected the company could earn up to $16 billion (approx. 10% of annual revenue) from scam and banned goods advertisements in 2024, with $7 billion annualized revenue from “higher risk” scam ads.
- Enforcement Threshold: Meta’s internal policy only bans advertisers if fraud certainty reaches 95%, and suspect advertisers below that threshold are often charged higher ad rates as a penalty.
- High Exposure: Meta shows users an estimated 15 billion “higher risk” scam ads daily and internal research estimates the platforms are involved in a third of all successful scams in the U.S.
- Financial vs. Regulatory Risk: Internal documents note that anticipated regulatory fines (up to $1 billion) are significantly smaller than the revenue Meta earns from high-risk scam ads alone (e.g., $3.5 billion every six months from higher legal risk ads).