Meta made scam ads harder to find instead of removing them
sherwood.news
sherwood.news
I once spent days getting rejection after rejection for ads for a Christmas light show event at a vineyard (not winery, it was a dry event), on the grounds that I was apparently selling alcohol.
Meanwhile I get ads for black market cigarettes, shrooms, roids, cannabis, and anything else you can imagine.
1. Frequency: The more I see ads for something, the more of a scam / less value I believe it to be.
2. Channel: Anything on YouTube or social media is 100% unequivocally a huge scam. To the point where if I think a product is legit or worthwhile, and I happen to see it on YouTube, I will change my mind and not even consider purchasing it.
3. Algorithmic vs. word of mouth: Anything I see that is obviously algorithmically fed to me (like recommendations, "you might like" and "featured" products) increases the scamminess / decreases the value.
It's too bad that legit small businesses trying to crack into a market are collateral damage, and I feel for them, but the ad pond is full of scum and if you're legit and you dive into it, you're going to get scum all over you.
How do we find what's worth buying then? Word of mouth, trying things in stores, reviews where they buy the products and are not given them.
I've blocked ads from my online experience for 20 years now, and I don't watch broadcast TV or radio, I live in a small town so I don't see much visual advertising. I feel like I'm at close to ad free as you can be in our ad saturated world. I don't feel that much is different between myself and our neighbours except that their house is full of shite they buy and throw out. None of it qol improving things. And we still have lots of material things, it's not like I spend no money. I guess my point is: what is the actual point of all this advertising anyway if you could remove it and not much changes. Make the world better, give us back our attention by default, we'll still buy stuff!
This has the same answer as when people ask "How do we find dating prospects without the internet?". Same way we did before the internet was a thing ;)
Take any of the images from an Instagram ad. Someone, somewhere, did (probably) build or design the product being sold (a lot come from Kickstarter and may have never launched), but if you search you'll find hundreds or more scams riding on that coattails who will hope to collect and fuck off with your money before IG shuts them down (if they ever do).
And why did you remove the option on returns to say "I think this is counterfeit"? etc. etc.
Full willful head in the sand.
Anything electric/electronic like that, now, I only order from places like Adorama or B&H or the manufacturer. And then actual "higher" end ones like Anker, etc.
"We're just a marketplace". I really need to revisit leaving Amazon as a resolution.
From twitter's POV, that's a feature, not a bug. It's intentional.
After reading Careless People, it became much more tangible. "Yes people are motivated by money", but Zuck and others at the top of FB actively make a point of expending significant effort to avoid fixing things. It's not that they don't know, or care, it's that they know and care about keeping the gravy train at full speed while they pat themselves on the back for being masters of the universe, so to speak.
When the non-profit tried to advertise the art festival on Facebook. Facebook not only denied them, but when the non-profit asked for a review of the denial they were warned if they asked again their entire facebook page would be flagged and deleted.
Facebook is large enough I cannot imagine their reasoning. They very likely have several conflicting streams of logic depending on teams involved. One thing I think is reasonable is that money is a motivational factor for Facebook.
Put simply, organizations who come in immediately spending money on advertising are more likely to be fast tracked. Organizations who don't spent a lot of money are more likely to be shut down. ("you've been a freeloader all this time who will likely not pay sustainably after this one-time payment. We're focusing on sustainable paying customers, goodbye")
Addition: Now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a literal metric of "money/time" ratio. The more money you spend in less time likely improves your chances of being fast-tracked, thus biasing new accounts who immediately spend on advertising over existing ones who sparsely pay.
They do bucket out support into spend tiers, although when I was there it was overall spend, not frequency
My username is a dumb old name, but it's the one I have.
Some of the best B2C customers are on FB — willing to spend, low expectations, low maintenance.
If you add IG to the mix, it’s even better.
Your typical HNer does not really fall into “ideal customer” profile for most B2C businesses. Our saving grace is our above average income profile. Other than that, on average we are tolerated rather than sought after (imho).
In my area there are groups related to a lot of different outdoor activities , and they share information, trip reports, etc. There might be some other forums for that, but they aren't as widely used or frequently updated.
I might look at my feed* perhaps 2-3 times a week; despite this, there's a good chance only one of my friends has posted anything new. Unfortunately, that particular friend is also a fairly cliché left-of-the-Cuban-Communist-Party (no, seriously) activist and 95% of her posts are "signal boosting" things I, a Brit living in Germany, do not have any connection to, e.g. "Demexit memes" or Bernie Sander's opinions about anything.
Doesn't help that this trillion dollar corporation still can't handle rotation metadata*, so if I see something and I want to share it, even if it's a good fit for my feed, 50% chance the pic looks stupid the moment I've uploaded it, to which I respond "ugh, never mind then" and forget about trying to solve this and don't post it.
* though the messenger app's web view
I know this is meant as rhetorical snark, but facebook is by far the most popular social network on the planet, so it just sounds silly.
Younger generations won't touch Facebook. It's seen as a platform for "old" people. So Facebook is on a modest decline. (Enter Instagram and Tiktok and all that to fill the void...)
Similar experience where I met someone in 2017 and was enraptured with them, and we eventually drifted apart because they only communicated through Snapchat and Instagram.
I often wonder if abstaining from the platforms that I dislike was worth the increase in loneliness and detachment from society, but I don't have access to the alternative universe where I decided to grit my teeth and accept the data hoarding companies and dark patterns as a tradeoff for being able to interact with people who couldn't care less about the technicalities.
My friends know I am not on Facebook. If they really want me to invite me to an event, they know how to reach me, and they do. Anything being communicated out only on Facebook, I just don't go to, and I probably wouldn't want to go to it anyway.
I've been off of Facebook for so long, I don't even remember when I quit. At least 10 years ago, probably 15. And I never joined Instagram, TikTok, or any of these other ad-delivery platforms. I don't feel that I am any more lonely or more detached from society because of it.
is the loneliness worth it? probably not. is the freedom? yes.
> where I decided to grit my teeth and accept the data hoarding companies and dark patterns as a tradeoff for being able to interact with people who couldn't care less about the technicalities.
I know, right? that infinite scroll/showing all the good things on the timelines isn't their real life, they're filling a void within themselves surfing short videos and voicing opinions on nearly everything.
even Zuckerberg said Facebook isn't for making/interacting with friends anymore, it's other things, and not good things.
you're not alone, and you're not detached from society, you're just unplugged from the matrix. of course I say this while browsing subreddits and hn, but hobbies and activities where we meet people, these are always going to be the best thing available to us. in the digital world there's plenty of people who'd be down for a LAN, a hangout, an event like going hiking, and I've met some cool people outside of social media but there's many days where it was me, 4 walls, a book/finding things to occupy my time.
trust me you did yourself a solid.
This from the same company that conveniently tends to reset privacy settings on posts
(It ought to be possible to access info as a non-user, but you can't, so they force you to sign up)
Who at Meta is responsible for posting scam ads? Nobody. But Meta isn't responsible, either. So some executive makes a halfhearted promise to do something about it, but without any accountability.
The "limited liability" was just supposed to be for debts, but it turned out to be good for laundering responsibility, too. Originally, corporations had fixed term charters. And it might be worth looking at that again.
What you would see is firms divesting from companies that do this to save their own skins too, so funds would dry up if they don't remediate it.
It is profoundly ironic that Meta is apparently using cloaking techniques against regulators. Cloaking is a black-hat technique where you show one version of a landing page to the ad review bot (e.g., a blog about health) and a different version to the actual user (e.g., a diet pill scam).
Meta has spent years building AI to detect when affiliates cloak their links. Now, according to this report, Meta is essentially cloaking the ads themselves from journalists and regulators by likely filtering based on user profiling, IP ranges, or behavioral signals. They are using the sophisticated targeting tools intended for advertisers to target the "absence" of scrutiny.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-created-playbook...
That doesn't sound like cloaking. They really are deleting the ads. They're just concentrating on the ads that the regulators are most likely to see based on what they usually search for.
This seems to be the "smoking gun"... but it's unclear from the article what the source or context of the quotations are.
> but it's unclear from the article what the source or context of the quotations are.
Good point, this quote could just be painting their actions in the poorest possible light.
Later part makes it sounds like the ads were at least deleted from the Japanese / Taiwan results areas completely, and then just redistributed to other geographic areas.
"If an unverified advertiser is blocked from showing ads in Taiwan, for example, Meta will show those ads more frequently to users elsewhere, creating a whack-a-mole dynamic in which scam ads prohibited in one jurisdiction pop up in another."
Notably, from a different article about fake accounts, and how much they cost, Japan's regulation seems to be working (at least somewhat). [1] Fake Accounts for Facebook Available (US, 157,401, @$0.13/account; Japan, 16, @$3.00/account, Dec 31st, 2025 data)
https://qz.com/dieselgate-sentences-handed-down-1851782440
I do not yet know if there's wrongdoing here, but even if it was screaming bad, all US government enforcement bodies have been gutted and made completely subservient to the will of the president rather than their legislatively mandated mission, under a novel "unitary executive" philosophy.
Further, that unitary executive is completely corrupt, and has already been paid off by Meta. Ukraine is a model of clean government with proper anti-corruption investigations and teeth compared to the US.
0: https://apnews.com/article/volkswagen-germany-diesel-emissio...
Annual revenue of VW at the time was 217B €. In the EU, they paid 1.5B €. So, 0.7% of their annual revenue for a scheme that went on for years.
Granted, in the US, they actually did persecute VW properly, and they ended up paying close to 30B $. A much proper sum.
As for the jail time, they arrested 2 from middle management in the EU. No member from the board or the CEO went to jail here.
Is that what we call justice now? Specially when we want to pretend we are superior to the USA in that regard?
You are expecting third party countries to begin litigation on crimes that happen outside of their borders - even if they're not even strictly illegal where they're headquartered?
That shit never happens, and if it would, you'd first have to start jailing lots of S&P CEOs for the companies crimes that are committed in other countries and never amount to anything, precisely for the same reason.
Like literally every company thats involved in any mining, drilling etc. They always don't adhere to local environmental regulations etc
What? No, you are completely wrong. The crime was committed in many places. In the USA, but also in several EU countries (Germany included).
In fact, the numbers were more than 10x higher in the EU (since we use a lot more diesel cars) than what they were in the USA.
600 000 vehicles were affected in the USA, while 8.5 million vehicles were affected in the EU.
USA courts, effectively, issued a fine more than 200x higher per vehicle affected, than what we did in the EU.
No one that actually followed the news (and isn't German and therefore completely biased) will say with a straight face that EU justice system didn't favor VW due to established interests. The German government obviously manipulated the judicial system all over Europe to let the case go away.
It also says a lot, that it had to be the Americans bringing the case to light. A lot of people probably knew, but the control that the Germans had (and still have) over European economy and judicial systems didn't allow anyone inside the EU to speak up.
No justice was made over here.
The checkout screen had no mention of a subscription or any cost of a subscription, so not even sure how this is legal.
It has not gotten to the point where I dont make any purchase via IG. I'll independently search for the product and purchase it (usually less expensively via Amazon.com).
Not sure how this is good for IG, because the attribution is then not matched on the purchase. Further, not sure how this is even good for the merchant, since I'll inevitably have to do a chargeback.
I'm still wondering what the Scam Prevention Framework enacted in Australia will do to mitigate this kind of stuff.
https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdb/au/legis/cth/conso... (Part IVF)
Eventually Google shut down the ability to use pre-paid credit cards (it came back an error when I attempted to enter the new card no) and that's when I closed my account. Their response was too obvious evidence <Goggle in conspiracy with the ad click bots> desired the ability to scam my account and one day I would check my email and get a $5,000 bill.
There is a rather obvious "conflict of interest" when you have to dispute a charge with your credit card provider knowing that the credit card co is fully aware they only make their "cut" if the charge goes through.
For chargebacks, the merchant has to pay at least a $15 fee on every chargeback, regardless of the outcome of the result. It's why many merchants prefer for you to contact them and ask for a refund rather than going through the chargeback process. For small purchases, merchants tend to just refund rather than dealing with an angry customer that's going to charge back.
No scummy company relying on dark patterns/etc to charge the customer without their consent will dare potentially airing this dirty laundry in front of a judge.
With all due respect, historically, the guy with the greenbacks holds the upper hand in any deal. Many abide by the rule: “The customer is always right”.
Internet merchants often with unrealistic low pricing to “bait you” are attempting to sway the balance in their favor by cutting corners, eliminating posting a telephone number answered promptly by a live human being, too often sending out “one way” do-not-reply emails, which is shameful. Recently I encountered a tactic whereby a large corporate health care company would ONLY discuss matters over a phone call, so unless you were recording the conversation (and provide proper legal notice of such at beginning of call) there was no record of the conversation (now internet providers like Spectrum are doing the same). In fact, they were attempting to force me to sign a 30+ page contract full of legalese and “boilerplate” in their doscusign pdf format which coincidentally disallows one from modifying or typing in any disclaimers within the signature line. They refused over multiple communications to respond to several of my questions regarding costs and any future billing. I finally just stonewalled them by saying I would only communicate via email so there would be a written record.
I can regularly obtain a live human on the phone with Amazon and have always received a favorable response - - - obviously Amazon values their reputation. I personally will not do business with any company that fails to provide a telephone number answered promptly by a live human. Often I buy locally from brick and mortar shops with return policies in the event the product doesn't hold up to expectations. The somewhat higher prices I pay at brick and mortar are just “added insurance” that doesn't even compare to the serious disappointment or anger one experiences from some internet purchases where the seller sent a fake or missing GPU card, or the item coming from China has no reasonable cost of shipping it back “hoping” for a refund, or even a US merchant who refuses to honor a valid return. Now that memory prices have exploded, I expect to see even more of these fake or missing GPU shipments from online sellers.
Having been a former cc merchant, I know that any merchant that receives a chargeback will suffer at least a $35 hit, plus more on the time and effort to respond and fight the chargeback, indeed I encourage all buyers to challenge any that we discover dishonest. Merchants getting enough chargebacks will suffer the company providing the merchant account cancelling their business merchant account, often the merchants are are then “blacklisted” in the cc industry.
What proportion of the scam ads do you think this approach caught?
That seems... kinda reasonable?
Health inspector: "hey it looks like your ice machine is dirty, and you're not keeping foods at a hot enough temperature"
Restaurant: "ok we'll clean our ice machines more carefully and install thermometers to monitor the temperature of our hot trays"
Journalist: "Restaurant made health violations harder to find instead of removing them!"
Would it be better if the restaurant was proactively fixing issues before the health inspector brought it up? Yes. Does it make sense to imply that the restaurant was acting maliciously by making health violations "harder to find"? No.
It's more like if the health inspector found e coli in the spaghetti, so Facebook threw out the spaghetti then said "trust us, you don't need to check the macaroni, it's fine."