> “Eighty five percent of ad accounts removed or banned for violating our policies never spent a dollar” and “nearly 70% of ad accounts removed for violating our policies are removed or banned within a week of account creation, many on the very day they’re created,” the spokesperson said.
"Hey, a huge portion of the ads actually being put in front of users are scams". "Don't worry, 90% of the accounts we're banning don't actually put ads in front of users".
"I know you hired us to remove the asbestos from your house, but don't worry, 90% of the asbestos we've found was not even in the house, it was already piled in a dumpster outside when we arrived".
This is a classic misdirection. The volume of spam increases exponentially with decreased effort. So you can have a really stupid filter that catches 99% of spam requests, while the output of the filter that the user sees is still completely dominated by spam. The really stupid low-effort spam is just so much more numerous.
The only things that really matter are: what % of actual user views are given to scams, and how hard would meta have to work to catch the scams that we can see coming through.
aappleby · 16h ago
I've seen dozens of AI generated scam ads for quilts, leather goods, backpacks, etcetera.
All are of the form "After 40 years my poor business is closing" plus a link to a generic online shop selling drop shipped goods from China at a 300% markup.
I report them all. They never get removed.
There are even Facebook groups for people who fell victim to the scams - Google 'Vantique' to find out more about the quilt scam.
The apathy by Facebook really puts me off using their platform, it feels like the dirty underbelly of the internet is taking over.
kotaKat · 15h ago
So they allow eight to thirty-two bad fraud ads to be run but if you sign up and look at the site funny even once, you can be banned to a shadow realm where not even government ID will let you out.
Good game, Facebook. Good game.
meepmorp · 15h ago
Well, yeah - the advertisers give them money.
technion · 15h ago
The part I'm amazed by now is the stupid metal ai responding to outright scams in a way suggesting it analysed them and concluded it was real.
givemeethekeys · 9h ago
"Don't bite the hand that feeds you."
nickphx · 12h ago
It's frustrating and disappointing that meta is not held responsible for their apathetic approach to preventing blatantly obvious scams from running on their advertising "platform".
"Hey, a huge portion of the ads actually being put in front of users are scams". "Don't worry, 90% of the accounts we're banning don't actually put ads in front of users".
"I know you hired us to remove the asbestos from your house, but don't worry, 90% of the asbestos we've found was not even in the house, it was already piled in a dumpster outside when we arrived".
This is a classic misdirection. The volume of spam increases exponentially with decreased effort. So you can have a really stupid filter that catches 99% of spam requests, while the output of the filter that the user sees is still completely dominated by spam. The really stupid low-effort spam is just so much more numerous.
The only things that really matter are: what % of actual user views are given to scams, and how hard would meta have to work to catch the scams that we can see coming through.
All are of the form "After 40 years my poor business is closing" plus a link to a generic online shop selling drop shipped goods from China at a 300% markup.
I report them all. They never get removed.
There are even Facebook groups for people who fell victim to the scams - Google 'Vantique' to find out more about the quilt scam.
The apathy by Facebook really puts me off using their platform, it feels like the dirty underbelly of the internet is taking over.
Good game, Facebook. Good game.