Tag Archives: Meta

Why Is Meta Letting Chinese Ad Scammers Rip Off Its Users For $3 Billion/Year?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and checking out Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources newsletter, when I came across this item about the latest tech world ad scam.

‘Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China…’
“…to safeguard billions in revenue.” That’s the headline on a new Reuters investigation by Jeff Horwitz and Engen Tham that relies heavily on internal documents. The reporters found that Meta “decided to accept high levels of fraudulent advertisements from China” as the company “wanted to minimize ‘revenue impact’ caused by cracking down on the scams.”

WhatsApp with that, Doc? Strip-mining our data isn’t enough for Mark Suckaberg? Now he’s running Fleecebook and Instascam for Chinese fraudsters?

– Met-ad-verse

Dear M-a-v,

Let’s start with some backstory.

Last week we noted that Meta was one of the tech companies (along with Cash App, Coinbase, Match Group, and Ripple) involved in the Tech Against Scams Coalition, which had just launched a Potemkin marketing campaign purportedly to help consumers identify and avoid online fraudsters. It lasted about as long as a standard WhatsApp message, and had slightly less impact.

We also linked to Jeff Horwitz’s November Reuters piece reporting that “Meta internally projected late last year that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue – or $16 billion – from running advertising for scams and banned goods, internal company documents show.”

Now comes this Reuters follow-up piece that zeroes in on the China connection to Meta’s ad-scam haul. In that case, fraudulent advertising generated not 10%, but 19% of the company’s revenues, or $3 billion of its $18 billion Chinese take in 2024.

Meta’s own internal audits showed that “Meta believed China was the country of origin of roughly a quarter of all ads for scams and banned products on Meta’s platforms worldwide.”  The company set up an anti-fraud team that “slashed the problematic ads by about half during the second half of 2024 – from 19% to 9% of the total advertising revenue coming from China.”

Then Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg weighed in.

“As a result of Integrity Strategy pivot and follow-up from Zuck,” a late 2024 document notes, the China ads-enforcement team was “asked to pause” its work. Reuters was unable to learn the specifics of the CEO’s involvement or what the so-called “Integrity Strategy pivot” entailed.

But after Zuckerberg’s input, the documents show, Meta disbanded its China-focused anti-scam team. It also lifted a freeze it had introduced on granting new Chinese ad agencies access to its platforms. One document shows that Meta shelved yet other anti-scam measures that internal tests had indicated would be effective.

So, to recap . . .

1) Meta knows.

2) Meta don’t care.

The Doc’s diagnosis: Mark Suckaberg never met a corner he wasn’t happy to cut. Why would he change now?

Is the Meta/Coinbase Anti-Scam Campaign Itself Just a Brandwashing Scam?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and poking around MediaPost’s Marketing Daily, when I came across Danielle Oster’s piece about a new anti-scam campaign sponsored by a bunch of scam-prone companies.

Tech Against Scams Coalition Serves Up ‘Scamberry Pie’

A group called Tech Against Scams Coalition (TASC) has launched a holiday scam prevention campaign as several companies involved in the group face lingering accusations of inadequate internal fraud prevention.

Launched in 2024, the cross-industry group includes representatives from companies including Cash App, Coinbase, Match Group, Meta, and Ripple. TASC partnered with Stereo Creative and media agency Noble People on the campaign, which the groups say was designed to inspire conversations around online fraud prevention.

According to Oster’s report, the campaign consists of “a social media ad . . . influencer partnerships, a food truck activation in Los Angeles . . . a Primrose Hill Bakery activation in London . . . and partnerships with community-based organizations such as AARP.”

So what are we talking here, Doc – mid-to-high five figures, plus creative fees? Isn’t this whole thing just a bargain-basement play for news coverage?

– Sam the Scam

Dear StS,

From all appearances, you’re right on the money.

Here’s the social media ad . . .

Not to get technical about it, but the video’s “Scam Fast Facts” are on-screen for all of three seconds, and the Scamberry web address appears in the tag for maybe two.

Feels kind of, well . . . scammy?

What’s most likely to happen is that the giveaways will get two minutes one night on local newscasts and the campaign will be over before you can finish your scamberry pie.

Meanwhile, here are some recent headlines you might find relevant.

Meta reportedly projected 10% of 2024 sales came from scam, fraud ads

Lawmakers pressure dating sites as $1.3 billion lost to romance scams each year

Coinbase phishing scams steal $65M in two months . . .

The Doc’s diagnosis: This Scamberry campaign is hardly gonna bury many scams.

What’s Up With WhatsApp’s Anti-Texting Ad Campaign?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and poking around CNN’s website, when I came across this piece by Rishi Iyengar.

Why WhatsApp wants to convince Americans to stop sending text messages

(CNN Business) – Since the start of this year, a series of advertisements have appeared on television screens and billboards across the United States, with ominous warnings to texters.

“I think I left the car unlocked, can you check?” reads a text message displayed on one of the billboards. The consequence, outlined next to the text bubble: “If your personal texts aren’t end-to-end encrypted, it’s not private.”

In a TV commercial, a mailman hands already-opened letters and packages to outraged recipients, before telling them that “every text you send is just as open as your letters.”

Those warnings are courtesy of WhatsApp, the mobile messaging service acquired by Facebookin 2014. While WhatsApp has grown into a formidable force since then, used by more than a quarter of the world’s population, the platform’s reach in its home market remains comparatively small.

So, whaddaya think, Doc – can people really be detexed from a longstanding addiction?

– WhatsAppening?

Dear WhatsAppening,

Here’s the thing.

According to the CNN piece, WhatsApp has fewer than 63 million users in the United States (versus 324 million Facebook users and 123 million Instagram users).

For those of you keeping score at home, “India alone has nearly 500 million WhatsApp users according to eMarketer, which is more than a third of its population and over half its internet user base,” per CNN.

Even more anemic than WhatsApp’s user numbers, however, are the messaging service’s revenue figures, according to Business of Apps.

Five and a half billion dollars is lunch money compared to Facebook’s 2021 revenue of $117 billion and Instagram’s $24 billion.

Thus, a series of TV spots like this one..

All this comes at a time when Facebook looks to be fading, as Tom Jarvis wrote last month at The Drum Network: “Recent news that Facebook’s user growth has slumped for the first time in 18 years has wiped 20% off parent company Meta’s share price (a drop in value of $175bn).”

Instagram’s numbers are also in freefall.

So now the empire of Mark (Data) Suckerberg looks to the Great Whats Hope to bail it out, as the CNN Business piece noted.

While apps such as Facebook and Instagram are already widely used in the United States and don’t have much room to grow, the potential for WhatsApp is much larger. The messaging app cost Facebook $19 billion almost a decade ago but generates little revenue. Meta is now trying to change that.

Boosting WhatsApp in the United States could have positive ripple effects on its other platforms and create new monetization opportunities in a lucrative market. But to get there, WhatsApp must fight an uphill battle to change how Americans text and, perhaps, how they view WhatsApp’s parent company.

No doubt that’s just what WhatsApp hopes its ad campaign will deliver.