Meta created ‘playbook’ to fend off pressure to crack down on scammers, documents show

SAN FRANCISCO – Japanese regulators last year were upset by a flood of ads for obvious scams on Facebook and Instagram. The scams ranged from fraudulent investment schemes to fake celebrity product endorsements created by artificial intelligence.

Meta, owner of the two social media platforms, feared Japan would soon force it to verify the identity of all its advertisers, internal documents reviewed by Reuters show. The step would likely reduce fraud but also cost the company revenue.

To head off that threat, Meta launched an enforcement blitz to reduce the volume of offending ads. But it also sought to make problematic ads less “discoverable” for Japanese regulators, the documents show.

The documents are part of an internal cache of materials from the past four years in which Meta employees assessed the fast-growing level of fraudulent advertising across its platforms worldwide. Drawn from multiple sources and authored by employees in departments including finance, legal, public policy and safety, the documents also reveal ways that Meta, to protect billions of dollars in ad revenue, has resisted efforts by governments to crack down.

In this case, Meta’s remedy hinged on its “Ad Library,” a publicly searchable database where users can look up Facebook and Instagram ads using keywords. Meta built the library as a transparency tool, and the company realized Japanese regulators were searching it as a “simple test” of “Meta’s effectiveness at tackling scams,” one document noted.

To perform better on that test, Meta staffers found a way to manage what they called the “prevalence perception” of scam ads returned by Ad Library searches, the documents show. First, they identified the top keywords and celebrity names that Japanese Ad Library users employed to find the fraud ads. Then they ran identical searches repeatedly, deleting ads that appeared fraudulent from the library and Meta’s platforms.

The tactic successfully removed some fraudulent advertising of the sort that regulators would want to weed out. But it also served to make the search results that Meta believed regulators were viewing appear cleaner than they otherwise would have. The scrubbing, Meta teams explained in documents regarding their efforts to reduce scam discoverability, sought to make problematic content “not findable” for “regulators, investigators and journalists.”

Within a few months, they said in one memo after the effort, “we discovered less than 100 ads in the last week, hitting 0 for the last 4 days of the sprint.” The Japanese government also took note, the document added, citing an interview in which a prominent legislator lauded the improvement.

Meta has studied searches of its Ad Library and worked to reduce the “discoverability” of problematic advertising. Documents reviewed by Reuters, and highlighted here by the news agency, show internal discussions about the effort. REUTERS

“Fraudulent ads are already decreasing,” Takayuki Kobayashi, of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told a local media outlet. Kobayashi didn’t respond to a Reuters request for comment about the interview.

Japan didn’t mandate the verification and transparency rules Meta feared. The country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications declined to comment.

So successful was the search-result cleanup that Meta, the documents show, added the tactic to a “general global playbook” it has deployed against regulatory scrutiny in other markets, including the United States, Europe, India, Australia, Brazil and Thailand. The playbook, as it’s referred to in some of the documents, lays out Meta’s strategy to stall regulators and put off advertiser verification unless new laws leave them no choice.

The search scrubbing, said Sandeep Abraham, a former Meta fraud investigator who now co-runs a cybersecurity consultancy called Risky Business Solutions, amounts to “regulatory theater,” distorting the very transparency the Ad Library purports to provide. “Instead of telling me an accurate story about ads on Meta’s platforms, it now just tells me a story about Meta trying to give itself a good grade for regulators,” said Abraham, who left the company in 2023.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone in a statement told Reuters there is nothing misleading about removing scam ads from the library. “To suggest otherwise is disingenuous,” Stone said.

By cleaning those ads from search results, the company is also removing them from its systems overall. “Meta teams regularly check the Ad Library to identify scam ads because when fewer scam ads show up there that means there are fewer scam ads on the platform,” Stone wrote.

Advertiser verification, he said, is only one among many measures the company uses to prevent scams. Verification is “not a silver bullet,” Stone wrote, adding that it “works best in concert with other, higher-impact tools.” He disputed that Meta has sought to stall or weaken regulations, and said that the company’s work with regulators is just part of its broader efforts to reduce scams.

Those efforts, Stone continued, have been successful, particularly considering the continuous maneuvers by scammers to get around measures to block them. “The job of chasing them down never ends,” he wrote. The company has set global scam reduction targets, Stone said, and in the past year has seen a 50% decline in user reports of scams. “We set a global baseline and aggressive targets to drive down scam activity in countries where it was greatest, all of which has led to an overall reduction in scams on platform.”

In Brussels, where European authorities have also been focused on scams, a spokesperson for the European Commission told Reuters its regulators had recently asked Meta for details about its handling of fraudulent advertising. “The Commission has sent a formal request for information to Meta relating to scam ads and risks related to scam ads and how Meta manages these risks,” spokesperson Thomas Regnier wrote. “There are doubts about compliance.” He didn’t elaborate.

The documents reviewed by Reuters show that Meta assigned its handling of scams the top possible score in an internal ranking of regulatory, legal, reputational and financial risks in 2025. One internal analysis calculated that possible regulation in Europe and Britain that would make Meta liable for its users’ scam losses could cost the company as much as $9.3 billion.

EMPLOY A “REACTIVE ONLY” STANCE

One big push among regulators is to get Meta and other social media companies to adopt what is known as universal advertiser verification. The step requires all advertisers to pass an identity check by social media platforms before the platforms will accept their ads. Often, regulators request that some of an advertiser’s identity information also be viewable, allowing users to see whether an ad was posted locally or from the other side of the world.

Google in 2020 announced that it would gradually adopt universal verification, and said earlier this year it has now verified more than 90% of advertisers. Along with requiring verification in jurisdictions where it’s legally mandated, Meta offers to voluntarily verify some large advertisers and sells “Meta Verified” badges to others, combining identity checks with access to customer support staff.

Documents reviewed by Reuters say that 55% of Meta’s advertising revenue came from verified sources last year. Stone, the spokesperson, added that 70% of the company’s revenue now comes from advertisers it considers verified.

The internal company documents show that unverified advertisers are disproportionately responsible for harm on Meta’s platforms. One analysis from 2022 found that 70% of its newly active advertisers were promoting scams, illicit goods or “low quality” products. Stone said that Meta routinely disables such new accounts, “some on the very day that they’re created.”

Meta’s documents also show the company recognizes that universal verification would reduce scam activity. They indicate that Meta could implement the measure in any of the countries where it operates in less than six weeks, should it choose to do so.

But Meta has balked at the cost.

Despite reaping revenue of $164.5 billion last year, almost all of which came from advertising, Meta has decided not to spend the roughly $2 billion it estimates universal verification would cost, the documents show. In addition to that cost of implementation, staffers noted, Meta could ultimately lose up to 4.8% of its total revenue by blocking unverified advertisers.

Instead of adopting verification, Meta has decided to employ a “reactive only” stance, according to the documents. That means resisting efforts at regulation – through lobbying but also through measures like the scrubbing of Ad Library searches in Japan last year. The reactive stance also means accepting universal verification only if lawmakers mandate it.

So far, just a few markets, including Taiwan and Singapore, have done so.

Even then, the documents show, the financial costs to Meta have remained small. Meta’s own tests showed verification immediately reduced scam ads in those countries by as much as 29%. But much of the lost revenue was recouped because the same blocked ads continued to run in other markets.

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. In the case of blocked ads in Taiwan, “revenue was redistributed/rerouted to the remaining target countries,” one March 2025 document said, adding that consumer injury gets displaced, too. “This would go for harm as well,” the document noted.

Meta analyses found that even when verification blocked ads in one market, those same ads would still generate revenues for the company in other markets. Highlighting of internal document reviewed by Reuters. REUTERS

Meta’s documents show the company believes its efforts to defeat regulation are succeeding. In mid-2024, one strategy document called the prospect of being “required to verify all advertisers” worldwide a “black swan,” a term used to describe an improbable but catastrophic event. In the months afterwards, policy staffers boasted about stalling regulations in Europe, Singapore, Britain and elsewhere.

In July, one Meta lobbyist wrote colleagues after they thwarted stricter measures considered by financial regulators in Hong Kong against financial scams. To get ahead of the effort, staffers helped regulators draft a voluntary “anti-scam charter.” They coordinated with Google, which also signed the charter, to present a “united front,” the document says. “Through skillful negotiations with regulators,” the Meta lobbyist wrote, Hong Kong relaxed rules that would have forced verification of financial advertisers. “The finalised language does not introduce new commitments or require additional product development.”

Hong Kong regulators, the lobbyist added, “have shown huge appreciation for Meta’s leading participation.”

Meta staffers boasted about success slowing the push by authorities for advertiser verification. In one document, highlighted here by Reuters, Meta employees say their lobbying in Hong Kong thwarted “new commitments” in local regulations. REUTERS

A Google spokesperson said the company signed onto the charter because it believed it would benefit customers. Google participated, he said, of its own accord and as the result of direct engagement with Hong Kong regulators.

In a statement, Hong Kong financial regulators said that “advertiser verification is one of many ways social media platforms can protect the investment public.” They declined to respond to Reuters’ questions about Meta and noted that the regulators involved with the charter don’t themselves have the authority to impose advertiser verification requirements.

“All social media platforms should strengthen their efforts to detect and remove fraudulent and unlawful materials,” they added.

“INDUSTRY AND REGULATORY EXPECTATIONS”

In some countries, regulators have determined that Meta platforms host more fraudulent content than its online competitors. In February 2024, Singapore police reported that more than 90% of social media fraud victims in the city state had been scammed through Facebook or Instagram. In a statement to Reuters, a spokesperson for Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs wrote that “Meta products have persistently been the most common platforms used by scammers.”

“We have repeatedly highlighted our deep concern over the continued prevalence of scams on Meta’s platforms,” the statement continued. After Reuters’ inquiries for this report, it added, Singapore authorities have asked Meta for more information and will broaden existing verification measures, including some mandating the use of facial recognition technology to prevent the impersonation of public figures. “We have reiterated that more needs to be done to secure Meta’s products and protect users from scams, instead of prioritising its profits. We have requested for a formal explanation from Meta and will take enforcement action if Meta is found to be in violation of legal requirements.”

To purchase most advertisements, all a client needs is a user account – easily created with an email or phone number and a user-supplied name and birthdate. If Meta doesn’t verify those details, it can’t know who it’s doing business with. Even if an advertiser gets banned, there is nothing to stop it from returning with a new account. A fraudster can merely sign up again.

Meta has known about the problem for years, documents and interviews with former staffers show.

In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, fake political ads flooded Facebook with disinformation. In response, the company took steps to reduce chances that could happen again. Back then, foreign actors seeking to influence the election easily placed ads masquerading as Americans. Some Russian advertisers pretending to be American political activists even paid for such ads in rubles, Meta has said.

Starting in 2018, the company began requiring a valid identity document and a confirmed U.S. address before clients could place political ads. In addition to providing verification for the company itself, the general details, including the name and location of the advertiser, could be viewed by users, too.

Rob Leathern, a former senior director of product management at Facebook who oversaw the effort to verify political advertisers, said the added transparency and accountability led some staffers to believe that Meta would broaden it to all advertisers. “I expected that the company would have continued to do more verification, and personally felt that was something that all major platforms should be doing,” said Leathern, who left the company at the end of 2020.

Meta in 2018 also introduced its Ad Library, an easily searchable database of all ads that run on its platforms. The company, the documents show, expected to generate goodwill with the library, particularly with regards to political advertisements. Competitors, including Google, soon launched ad libraries of their own.