Senators demanded an audit of Meta because of possible proceeds from fraudulent advertising
US Senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal have asked the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate Meta Platforms following reports that the company may have received up to 10% of its revenue from fraudulent advertising, Reuters writes.
"The FTC and SEC should immediately launch investigations and, if the information is confirmed, take strict action, including recovery of illegally obtained profits, fines, and a ban on such advertising," the senators wrote in a letter to the federal agencies.
In early November, the agency revealed that, according to internal Meta documents, the company expected to generate about $16 billion in 2024 - that is, about 10 percent of its revenue for that year - from ads related to online sales and investment fraud, illegal casinos and illegal medical products. One of the documents noted that users of Meta's platforms see about 15 billion "high-risk" ads containing fraud indicators every day. A company spokesperson told Reuters at the time that an internal estimate of revenue from questionable ads was "approximate and overly broad" and the actual amount was lower. Meta also said it has reduced the number of user complaints about fraud by 58% over the past year and a half.
Hawley and Blumenthal expressed doubt about the effectiveness of Meta's efforts in the letter, pointing to the Ad Library, a publicly accessible database of all ads on the company's platforms. "Even a cursory review of the Ad Library reveals easily recognizable ads for illegal gambling, payment fraud schemes, crypto-fraud, sexually explicit AI dipfakes, and bogus offers of federal benefits," they wrote.
The senators noted that the FTC estimates that Americans lost $158.3 billion to fraudulent schemes last year. "It can be assumed that Meta accounts for more than $50 billion in consumer losses," the petition said.
Hawley and Blumenthal's letter "contains exaggerated and incorrect claims," Ma spokesman Andy Stone told the agency. "We actively fight fraud and deceptive schemes because users don't want to see this kind of content, honest advertisers don't want to be around it, and we don't want it ourselves," he said.
Shares of Meta added 3% at the trading on November 24 along with the growth of the broad market. Since the beginning of the year, the company's value has increased by 4.6%.
This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor
