A Reuters investigation says Meta had an internal “playbook” for responding to regulator pressure over scam ads—one that didn’t just focus on removing fraud, but also used tactics that could make scam ads harder for authorities to find.
That’s a troubling distinction. Platforms are judged not only by whether they take down bad ads, but by whether they enable meaningful oversight. If a company learns how regulators search for scams and then optimizes what those searches surface, it risks turning enforcement into optics: make the problem look smaller under inspection, even if the underlying fraud ecosystem persists.
Why does this matter? Because scam ads aren’t a minor nuisance—they’re often direct financial harm. People lose savings, get impersonated, or fall into fake investment and shopping traps. When transparency tools and ad libraries are the main way outsiders audit a platform, “discoverability” becomes part of accountability.
The broader takeaway is simple: safety isn’t just about deleting bad content. It’s also about not gaming the ways society tries to measure and police that content. If oversight can be outmaneuvered, scammers aren’t the only ones running strategies.
