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Fraudulent Facebook and Instagram ads viewed 900 million times: report

Posted on by Gerres
Fraudulent Facebook and Instagram ads viewed 900 million times: report

A new report released by Facebook shows that Facebook, the online machine that turns lies into money, is completely tainted by fraudsters who buy ads with political messages. ProPublica. The fact that fraud occurs on Meta platforms such as Facebook and Instagram should, of course, not be news to anyone. However, this new article helps shed some light on the scale of the Meta problem and the company’s inability to control content at scale. One surprising fact from the article? ProPublica identified fraud networks that ran ads “900 million times on Facebook and Instagram.”

The new report is part of an investigation by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School and the Technology Transparency Projecta non-profit organization researching Big Tech companies. ProPublica notes that most of the fraud networks identified in its report are lead generation companies that collect and sell personal information. The ads often appear to promote deals backed by federal politicians like Donald Trump and Joe Biden, while others have a more local focus, such as an ad identified by ProPublica featuring Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

One of the ads cited in the article includes a photo of Governor Pritzker that reads: “The state recently approved that Illinoisans under the age of 89 can now qualify for up to $35,000 in funeral expenses insurance to cover all end-of-life costs. living expenses!” You can see how it would specifically target vulnerable seniors in Illinois, appeal to people in their 70s and 80s, and promise a good deal on funeral insurance.

Other ads are more tied to partisan anger, such as an account selling Trump merchandise that reads “liberal activists tear Trump-Vance signs off the ground, sparking a wave of controversy across the country.” ProPublica spoke with one Trump supporter who, when purchasing some, didn’t realize he was signing up for a recurring subscription Trump coins.

There were also plenty of ads targeting decent people and demanding free government health insurance. One series of ads mentioned in the new report directed Facebook users to “unethical insurance agents who changed the details of their existing ACA plan or enrolled them in plans for which they were not eligible.” Why would scammers do this? Simply to get a commission.

Another shocking fact from the article that is really worth it reading in fullis that even when scam ads are identified, accounts on the same network may still be active.

From ProPublica:

The investigation found that Meta removed some ads after initially approving them, but failed to catch thousands of other ads with similar or even identical content. In many cases, even after violating ads were removed, it allowed associated Facebook pages and accounts to continue operating, allowing parent networks to create new pages and ads.

Gizmodo reached out to Meta for comment on Thursday, specifically to ask how fraud networks can continue to operate after their content is flagged as fraudulent. The company did not respond to our question, instead sending the same statement it sent to ProPublica, emphasizing that it is constantly working to update its enforcement systems.

“We welcome ProPublica’s investigation into this fraud, which involved deceptive ads promoting Affordable Care Act tax credits and government-funded rent subsidies. All ads, some from several years ago, were available for public viewing in the Meta Ad Library, where ads are stored for seven years,” a statement from a Meta spokesperson read.

“Our investigation has shown that as part of our ongoing work against fraud, impersonation and spam, our enforcement systems have already detected and disabled a large proportion of the pages, and we have reviewed and taken action against the remainder of these pages for various policy violations. This is a highly adversarial space and we are constantly updating our enforcement systems to respond to changing fraudster behavior.”

There is, of course, some irony in Meta pushing artificial intelligence while also doing a poor job of identifying fraudulent ads on its own platform. Searching for scams and making sure accounts associated with those scams can’t buy ads seems like the perfect job for AI. Or at least that would be an ideal task for AI, if it were more than a plagiarism machine.

Of course, Facebook is not the only platform dealing with fraud. Each network with Social truth Down Grindr has scammers trying to illegally extort money from people. However, with its global reach and billions of users, Meta is in the unique position of being overwhelmed by garbage. The only question left is why people are so willing to throw themselves into the trash every day.