Internal documents have revealed that Meta has projected it earns billions from ignoring scam ads that its platforms then targeted to users most likely to click on them.

In a lengthy report, Reuters exposed five years of Meta practices and failures that allowed scammers to take advantage of users of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Documents showed that internally, Meta was hesitant to abruptly remove accounts, even those considered some of the “scammiest scammers,” out of concern that a drop in revenue could diminish resources needed for artificial intelligence growth.

  • jqubed@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Instead of promptly removing bad actors, Meta allowed “high value accounts” to “accrue more than 500 strikes without Meta shutting them down,” Reuters reported. The more strikes a bad actor accrued, the more Meta could charge to run ads, as Meta’s documents showed the company “penalized” scammers by charging higher ad rates. Meanwhile, Meta acknowledged in documents that its systems helped scammers target users most likely to click on their ads.

    “If you’re going to scam our users we want a cut.”

    • bobalot@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      I remember the internet era of the 90s/00s where piracy and porn sites had scammy ads and the legit sites were far more clean.

      It seems to have completely reversed.