Meta Platforms internally projected that around 10 percent of its total revenue – roughly $16 billion a year – comes from advertising tied to scams and prohibited products, according to internal company documents obtained by Reuters.

The previously undisclosed files, spanning from 2021 to early 2025, reveal that the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp has struggled for years to contain a flood of fraudulent ads promoting fake investments, illegal gambling, and banned medical products.

One internal document, dated December 2024, estimated that users across Meta’s platforms were exposed to approximately 15 billion “high-risk” scam advertisements daily. Another report from the same period calculated that the company earned approximately $7 billion annually from this category alone.

The materials suggest that Meta’s automated fraud-detection systems often flagged suspicious advertisers but rarely banned them outright. The company reportedly only suspends advertisers if algorithms are at least 95 percent certain of fraudulent activity. When suspicion is lower, Meta instead imposes higher advertising rates, effectively charging potential scammers more rather than removing them.

The documents also reveal that users who engage with scam content are shown more of it due to Meta’s ad-targeting system, which tailors ads based on user behaviour.

Together, the internal assessments highlight what employees described as a corporate reluctance to curb abusive advertising too aggressively, out of concern that stronger action could cut into revenue.

Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the findings.