Category: social media

November 16, 2025 / / 0 Comments

by Chiara Cavaglieri

Documents from late 2024 reveal the shocking extent of malicious advertising on Meta platforms. These note that Meta users are exposed to an estimated 15 billion ‘higher risk’ scam ads a day, which are those that show clear signs of being fraudulent. Meta also pockets around $7bn in revenue from this category of scam ads each year. 

Scammers are clearly willing to spend money upfront to entrap victims using online advertising platforms. Media research firm Fenimore Harper reported last year that rogue advertisers on Meta spent more than £21,000 on over 250 adverts in just one month for an investment scam campaign featuring deepfakes of Prime Minister Keir Starmer. 

Clicking on just one malicious ad can also result in people being bombarded with more, because the leaked documents also note that Meta’s ad-personalisation system tries to deliver ads based on a user’s interests.

How will Meta solve its scam problem?

Meta later labelled its initial internal estimate (that it would earn 10.1% of its 2024 revenue from scams and other prohibited ads) as ‘rough and overly-inclusive’, though it declined to provide an updated figure. 

Meta told us that reports from users about scam ads have declined by more than 50% in the past 15 months and, so far in 2025, Meta has removed more than 134 million pieces of scam ad content. 

Meta said: ‘We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it and we don’t want it either. Scammers are persistent criminals whose efforts, often driven by ruthless cross-border criminal networks that operate on a global scale, continue to grow in sophistication and complexity. As scam activity becomes more persistent and sophisticated, so do our efforts. 

‘Unfortunately, the leaked documents present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams by focusing on our efforts to assess the scale of the challenge, not the full range of actions we have taken to address the problem.’

key information

Three recent fraud tactics by Meta scammers

Know these latest tactics used by scammers on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp:

  1. Discounts and ‘mystery boxes’ from big brands such as Lidl, Screwfix, Currys, B&Q and Boots are rife on Facebook. Scammers will use stolen brand images to offer fake competitions and deals, perhaps claiming that you only need to pay a small sum for postage, to trick you into entering your card details. Not only do you never receive the goods, but your card details could be stolen and you may be signed up for expensive monthly subscriptions. 
  2. Celebrity crypto deepfakes are still being spread far and wide by rogue investment advertisers on Facebook and Instagram. These scammers create doctored videos of famous faces such as Martin Lewis and fictitious BBC news stories to convince victims to invest – usually small sums at first, but things can quickly spiral. 
  3. Fake job offers can appear on any social media platform and online job boards, but reports suggest WhatsApp is a particularly popular avenue for recruitment scammers who claim to have lucrative opportunities for remote workers. One of the most prevalent is ‘task scams’, which promise commission if you complete a series of simple online tasks in your own time, such as liking videos, leaving reviews and completing surveys.

June 6, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Adverts on social media platforms are tempting shoppers to buy items that don’t exist, are of poor quality or aren’t as described.

There have been a range of cases where people have been misled into purchasing counterfeit and dangerous goods, as well as items that simply never turn up. 

There seems to be no end to these rogue retailers popping up and conning innocent shoppers. They use slick social media adverts showing tempting offers, but what arrives are low-quality alternatives shipped from China. To make matters worse, if you’ve been lured in by a rogue retailer, then your chances of getting your money back are low. 

Sometimes, a rogue retailer can be hard to spot, especially as freely available AI tools can be misused to create convincing images and product descriptions. 

If you’re tempted by an offer you’ve seen online, you should follow these steps before you part with any money:

  1. Assess how reasonable the offer is Prices that sound too good to be true usually are.
  2. Check for signs of a newly created website Use a domain checker, such as who.is, to see when the website was created. If it’s recent, then you should avoid it.
  3. Use TinEye or image search on Google to see if images in adverts and on websites have been used anywhere else on the internet. 
  4. Watch out for poor spelling, bad grammar and phrases that don’t sound right.
  5. See if the website lists a physical address Businesses should have this, as well as a phone number or email address to contact them.
  6. Check if the company’s website lists a shipping and returns policy If it’s legitimate, it should have this.
  7. Look at reviews across several sources to get a sense of the experience of other shoppers.
January 1, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Facebook Memories can be good for a laugh or a fond memory, but do you want them popping up all the time and possibly causing embarrassment. Here’s how to customize your Facebook settings to hide them on the mobile app.

1. Open the Facebook app on your phone.

2. Tap the Menu button. On Android it will be in the top-right corner of the screen, and on iPhone it will be in the bottom-right corner.

3. Tap Memories.

4. Tap the Gear icon in the top-right corner to access Memories Settings.

5. You can choose between All Memories, Highlights or None. All Memories means Facebook will show you all your memories from that day, Highlights will only show you special videos and collections, and None means you won’t get notifications for any memories. 

If you want something more specific, you can choose to hide memories involving specific users. Follow the steps above, but instead tap People in the Memories Settings page. You can type in a user’s name that you want to hide from your memories. They won’t be notified, and your selections are saved automatically. 

You can also tap Dates in the Memories Settings page to hide memories from a specific date range. You can enter almost any span of time — a day, a week, month or an entire year — going back in time to 1900. When you’re done, tap Done and then tap Save. 

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