It’s no surprise by now that scam ads are very profitable on Meta platforms, namely Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp. A prior Reuters report pointed out that the company made an estimated US$16 billion (~RM65.3 billion) from these ads in 2024. And in Malaysia specifically, the company may have made up to RM250 million in problematic ads in 2023. A more recent one points out that about about US$3 billion (~RM12.25 billion), comes from China alone. But more revealingly, the report claims that these scam ads are tolerated. Initial efforts to fight them were also hampered by company CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The report cites internal Meta documents that note that the company believed China was the source of about a quarter of all ads for scams and banned products on Meta’s platforms worldwide. The company also calculated that about 19% of China’s ads were scams, illegal gambling, porn or other banned content. The documents also indicate that staffers urged leadership to “make significant investment to reduce growing harm”.
Initially, Meta agreed, establishing an anti-fraud team that went further than prior efforts to monitor illicit activity from China. The team managed to cut down problematic ads by about half – from 19% to 9% of China’s total ad revenue – during the second half of 2024. Then, a late 2024 document says that “as a result of Integrity Strategy pivot and follow-up from Zuck”, the ads enforcement team for China was “asked to pause” its work. By mid-2025, banned ads made up of 16% of Meta’s China revenue. For context, this figure was at 19% before the initial crackdown.
It’s unclear to what extent Zuckerberg was involved or what said strategy pivot entailed. But the report cites Meta spokesperson Andy Stone as saying that the China-specific anti-scam team was always meant to be temporary, and that Zuckerberg did not order the team’s disbanding. Stone also claims that the Meta CEO had instead ordered anti-scam teams “to redouble efforts to reduce them all across the globe, including in China.
Coincidental Correlation?
According to the report, Meta’s internal documents label China as the company’s top “Scam Exporting Nation”. And there’s an odd coincidence that helps draw that correlation, too. One example was a during the country’s Golden Week of holidays in October, where rates of scams on Meta’s platform declines worldwide.
Unfortunately, while the scams may originate from China, the Chinese government is unlikely to take action. This is because said government generally turns a blind eye as long as its own citizens are not being targeted. And since Meta platforms are banned for the average citizen, they are improbable to be targets unless they go out of their way to circumvent them.
(Source: Reuters)
