Meta is growing at a remarkable rate. Already one of the world’s biggest global advertising businesses, the tech giant’s revenue grew 33% year-on-year to $56.3bn in Q1 alone.
But while its dominance over the ad industry has crystallised, so has scrutiny into its business practices – and advertisers’ role in funding online harms through its platforms.
Separate court cases in the US this year found that Meta has designed harmfully addictive platforms, and that it has misled users about platform safety and facilitated child sexual exploitation.
A report from Reuters last November found that Meta knowingly earned 10% of its global turnover in 2024 from fraud and scam ads. At the LEAD conference in London this year, a spokesperson for Meta disputed the figure, but acknowledged that revenue from fraud and scam ads “might” have accounted for 3-4% of turnover – still equivalent to between $5bn and $7bn.
And now there are concerns over the privacy implications of its line of smart glasses, which the company has positioned as the future of consumer electronics. Wired reported in June that Meta had quietly added facial recognition code into the product, before removing it after the publication of the reporting.
All this comes as Meta has increasingly launched tools aimed at automating creative and media decisioning for advertisers, calling into question the role of agencies in a future dominated by tech platforms, their data, and their AI tools.
It’s a lot to unpack. At Cannes this year, The Media Leader put questions on all these topics and more to Meta’s EMEA vice president, Derya Matras.
In the interview, Matras notably claimed that Meta has invested $30bn into addressing issues of ad fraud, scams and "other integrity issues". She said, "it's not like we knowingly have bad ads" and that Meta is "incentivised to take action on this" because it is "not good for us."
But, since recording the interview, an investigation by the BBC found that Instagram has been running paid ads in India that promote child sexual abuse material on the messaging app Telegram.
When one of the ads was reported to Meta by the BBC, Meta reportedly initially responded that the ad did not violate its community guidelines. Meta later told the BBC it had disabled several of the ads and suspended the accounts posting them.
A spokesperson for Meta told The Media Leader: “Meta has a zero tolerance policy for soliciting or sharing CSAM, including in ads. We use advanced AI technology to proactively detect violating content and individuals, but we are in a constant battle with criminals who hide among our 3.5bn users and try to evade our detection. That is why our expert teams are constantly working to improve our defenses, develop new technology to root out predators, block links to violating websites, and share intelligence with other companies so they can take action too."
A full transcript of the conversation is available on The Media Leader, edited for length and clarity.
Highlights:
3:27: Reaction to social media bans for under-16s, criticism of failure to address online harms and addictive design
11:58: Advertisers want more transparency of where their ads show up on platforms
13:29: Why is Meta knowingly earning billions from fraud and scam ads?
17:15: Meta is automating creative and media decisioning. Should agencies be concerned?
27:04: Are smart glasses still the future of commercial technology? What about privacy implications?
30:21: Meta's growth depends on providing good user experience. Is it getting worse?
Related articles:
Molly Russell charity CEO: Social media’s user safety efforts have been ‘performative’
‘Right diagnosis, wrong prescription’? Adland torn as Starmer announces under-16s social media ban
‘Are we monetising addiction?’ Ad industry faces reckoning following social media addiction lawsuit verdict
Snap is betting on smart glasses. Should brands?
Ireland