Washington, DC – Consumer Reports is calling on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general across the country to take enforcement action against Meta for knowingly allowing the proliferation of billions of scam advertisements that led to billions of dollars in profits for the corporation.
A recent Reuters investigation revealed that Meta – according to Meta’s own documents, reviewed by Reuters – delivered an estimated 15 billion scam ads a day to its users in 2024. Meta, which operates Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, failed to identify and remove most scam ads, exposing billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce scams, investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products.
“Meta is one of the largest publishers in the world and has a responsibility to protect its users from scams, yet it continually chooses to prioritize profits instead of protecting its users,” said Justin Brookman, director of tech policy at Consumer Reports. “Not only has Meta allowed scammers to freely advertise on their platform, it willfully ignored the issue while its algorithms helped proliferate the scam ads to billions of users. We are calling on state attorneys general and the FTC to hold Meta accountable for its failure to protect users from harmful scams.”
According to Reuters, Meta projects that 10 percent of the company’s entire revenue will soon be attributable to ads for illegal goods and scams. This would add up to $16 billion per year, a staggering figure. At the same time, Meta has refused to take remedial steps to curtail the stream of harmful ads, defunding its safety teams and taking action against advertisers in only the most extreme of circumstances.
Under the FTC Act and many state consumer protection laws, companies are prohibited from engaging in “unfair” business practices that cause significant injury, are not reasonably avoidable by consumers, and that are not offset by countervailing benefits to consumers or competition. This includes injuries caused by third parties that a company had the capacity to stop but failed to take reasonable steps to do so. For example, the FTC has brought dozens of enforcement actions against companies for failing to use reasonable security measures to stop attackers from accessing consumers’ personal information.
Contact: cyrus.rassool@consumer.org