Meta faces a crisis of advertising confidence
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24 Dec 2025 •
Reading time: 3 minutes Social networking giant Meta is now facing a major controversy surrounding its advertising system. An in-depth investigation, based on internal documents and eyewitness accounts, has raised questions about the way in which the company manages fraudulent advertising content.
A daily barrage of high-risk advertising
According to internal documents consulted by Reuters, every day Meta’s platforms serve up to 15 billion advertisements considered ‘high-risk’ by their own systems. These ads include fraudulent content, such as unrealistic promises of winnings, illegal online casinos and products banned by the platform’s rules.
This finding is all the more disturbing given that these ads reach billions of people on the group’s flagship services, creating massive exposure to potentially dangerous or illegal offers.
The data reveals a surprising financial reality: Meta reportedly estimated that around 10% of its advertising revenue in 2024, or around $16 billion, came from ads related to scams, banned products and illegal gambling. In some cases, Meta’s automated mechanisms only remove ads if their artificial intelligence model estimates with 95% certainty that they are fraudulent, a threshold that experts say allows a considerable amount of illegal or misleading content to pass through before any action is taken.
The role of China
A central element of the debate concerns the role of advertising partners based in China. Although the Meta group’s social networks are blocked in China, Chinese agencies are able to buy advertising space aimed at international users.
According to the same sources, these partners were responsible for a disproportionate amount of the problematic advertising, including offers for illegal online casinos and fraudulent promotions. The documents reveal that a specialised team set up to combat this phenomenon managed to halve the share of these ads in the revenue generated in China.
However, this anti-fraud unit was later disbanded or redirected after management intervention, leading to a rebound in the volume of risky advertising. This recent turnaround has reignited criticism that Meta’s commercial priorities take precedence over user safety.
Zuckerberg in turmoil: leadership and controversial decisions
Mark Zuckerberg‘s exact role in the restructuring of efforts to combat fraudulent ads remains unclear, but documents suggest that an internal strategic decision combined with his guidance led to the temporary cessation of effective measures.
In an internal email quoted by the source, the phrase ‘As a result of Integrity Strategy pivot and follow-up from Zuck’ indicated that the Chinese ad control team had been asked to suspend its activities. This revelation provoked strong reactions from former employees of the firm and digital security experts.
The impact on users and regulators
The consequences of this situation go far beyond the sphere of technophiles. Internet users and regulators around the world have expressed growing concern about the exposure of millions of users to potentially fraudulent or illegal advertising. From bogus investment campaigns to unregulated casino ads, the risks to unwary consumers are real and documented.
In the face of these revelations, Meta maintains that it is continuing to work to remove harmful content, noting in particular a significant drop in reports of fraudulent ads in the previous year and the removal of millions of reported items. However, these assertions are seen by some observers as insufficient in view of the scale of the phenomenon described in the internal documents.
This case could well mark a turning point in the way digital platforms are held accountable for their advertising ecosystem – not only by their users, but also by legal institutions and governments.