"For Rob Leathern, a former Meta executive who led the company's business integrity operations until 2019, the findings expose a stark tension between revenue growth and consumer harm. The report, published Monday, found that Meta generated roughly $18 billion in advertising revenue from China in 2024, around 10% of its global revenue, even as internal documents showed that nearly one-fifth of that (about $3 billion) came from ads tied to scams, illegal gambling, pornography, and other prohibited activity."
""It appears that a variety of business partners that Meta has are not conducting themselves in an ethical way and or there are employees of those companies that are not doing what they're supposed to be doing," he said. "It's quite telling that Meta took down its entire partner directory, which obviously means that they must be reviewing their partners, and there's a lot of them.""
Meta generated roughly $18 billion in advertising revenue from China in 2024, approximately 10% of its global revenue. Nearly one-fifth of that revenue—about $3 billion—was tied to ads connected to scams, illegal gambling, pornography, and other prohibited activity. China was labeled the top "scam exporting nation," accounting for 25% of all scam and banned-product ads globally. Meta's core platforms are blocked in China, yet the company still earns billions from Chinese advertisers targeting global users. Internal concerns point to unethical conduct by business partners or employees, prompting removal of the partner directory and partner reviews. Meta reports using technical measures, industry cooperation, law enforcement engagement, and platform warnings to combat scams and enforce rules.
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