Facebook, an Internet machine that turns lies into money, is absolutely swimming in scammers who buy ads with political messages, according to a new report from ProPublica. The fact that Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram have scams shouldn’t be news to anyone, obviously. But this new article helps provide some insight into the scale of the Meta problem and the company’s inability to control content at scale. A surprising fact from the article? ProPublica identified scam networks that ran ads seen “900 million times on Facebook and Instagram.”

The new report is part of an investigation by Columbia Journalism School’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism and The Technological Transparency Projecta nonprofit that researches Big Tech companies. And ProPublica notes that most of the scam networks identified in its report are part of lead generation companies that collect and sell personal information. The ads are often made to look like they’re promoting deals backed by federal politicians like Donald Trump and Joe Biden, while others go more local, like an ad identified by ProPublica featuring Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

An ad cited in the article features a photo of Governor Pritzker, reading: “The state recently approved that Illinois residents under the age of 89 can now qualify for funeral expense insurance of up to $35,000 to cover any end of … living expenses!” You can see how this would specifically target vulnerable seniors in Illinois by appealing to people in their 70s or 80s and promising a good deal on funeral insurance.

Other ads are more specifically tied to partisan anger, such as an account selling Trump merchandise that reads “liberal activists rip Trump-Vance yard signs from ground, sparking controversy across nation.” ProPublica spoke with a Trump supporter who didn’t realize he was signing up for a recurring subscription when he bought some Trump coins.

Watch this video of an AI-generated news anchor selling a “limited edition Trump-Vance coin” and calling both candidates “beautiful devils.”

The anchor warns that “radical left-wing groups” are “campaigning to ban the currency”.

Confused? Get the full story in the TTP report: pic.twitter.com/ipvJn7Y01O

— The Technology Transparency Project (@TTP_updates) October 31, 2024

There have also been a lot of ads targeting decent people with claims for free government health insurance. A series of ads cited in the new report directed Facebook users to “unethical insurance agents who changed their existing ACA plan details 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, which is really worth it reading in fullis that even when ads from scammers are identified, accounts on the same network may continue to work.

From ProPublica:

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

Gizmodo reached out to Meta on Thursday for comment, specifically asking about how scam networks can continue to operate after their content has been flagged as fraudulent. The company did not address our question, instead sending the same statement it sent to ProPublica, insisting it is constantly working to update its enforcement systems.

“We welcome ProPublica’s investigation into this fraudulent activity, which included misleading ads promoting Affordable Care Act tax credits and government-funded rent subsidies. The ads, some of them years old, were all available for public review in Meta’s Ad Library, where ads are kept for seven years,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

“Our investigation has shown that, as part of our ongoing work against scams, identity theft and spam, our enforcement systems have already detected and disabled a large proportion of Pages – and we have reviewed and taken action against the rest of these Pages for various policy violations. . This is a highly adversarial space and we continue to update our enforcement systems to respond to evolving fraudster behavior.”

There is some irony, of course, in the fact that Meta is pushing into artificial intelligence while being so bad at spotting scam ads on its own platform. Finding scams and making sure accounts associated with those scams can’t buy advertising seems like a perfect job for AI. Or, at least, it would be a perfect job for the AI ​​if it were something other than a plagiarism machine.

Facebook isn’t the only platform dealing with scams, of course. Every network from Social Truth TO Grindr has scam artists trying to extract money from people illegally. But with its global reach and billions of users, Meta is in a unique position to see itself littered. The only question that remains is why people willingly submit to the landfill every day.