Meta Internal Docs: ‘Fake Ads’ Generated Billions, Sparking Internal Revenue Goals

Meta apparently accepts that billions of “fake ads”, i.e. fraudulent advertising, are delivered to its users. Internal documents are said to show how Facebook earned up to $16 billion a year from “high-risk” advertising.

Revenue from ‘fake ads’ estimated at up to $16 billion

The news agency Reuters according to its own information, there are extensive internal documents from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, according to which the company earns up to 10 percent of its sales annually from advertising fraudulent offers, prohibited goods and illegal casinos. This currently corresponds to up to 16 billion dollars per year.

One of the papers states that Meta displays “higher risk advertising” to its users approximately 15 billion times every single day, dating back to December 2024. This refers to advertisements for which there are clear indications that they may be fraudulent in one way or another and therefore potentially illegal in many countries.

In real terms it was probably ‘only’ seven billion

According to another document from the end of 2024, Meta recently achieved sales of around seven billion dollars by marketing ads in this category. The company itself pointed out that the data cited presented a distorted picture of how it deals with “fake ads”. The internal estimate that up to 10.1 percent of sales in 2024 could come from fraudulent advertising later turned out to be exaggerated.

The actual sales from the “fake ads,” which were mostly booked and marketed automatically, were significantly lower, Meta said in a statement to Reuters. At the same time, the internal papers supposedly show that Meta is making every effort to reduce the proportion of fraudulent online ads, but is also finding it extremely difficult to do so.

Money is more important than protecting users

Apparently there is a fear that if you stop delivering “fake ads” you will face a huge loss in sales. According to a paper from February 2025, the team responsible for combating fraud reports was prohibited from taking measures that would cost the group more than 0.15 percent of total group sales. After consultation with Meta boss and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the decision has now been made to gradually reduce the proportion of revenue from fake advertising.

Most recently, it was supposedly planned to carefully reduce the proportion, so that initially only a good 7.3 percent would come from “fake ads” by the end of 2025, six percent by the end of 2026 and around 5.8 percent by the end of 2027. Another detail from the internal documents was also explosive. Meta allegedly ignores virtually all user reports of fraudulent ads appearing on Facebook, Instagram, or elsewhere in its ecosystem. To date, 99 percent of cases have simply not been pursued further, with the company internally citing a lack of automated testing options as the reason. Here too, they now want to make improvements, according to the Reuters report, citing the documents.