This summer, thousands of Facebook users encountered a manipulated video featuring White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. In the altered footage, she appeared to announce a $5,000 government relief check, directing viewers to a fabricated official website. Clicking the link, however, led to an advertiser named ‘Get Covered Today’.
Similar misleading ads used fabricated videos of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, promising non-existent government rebates. Ms. Warren’s digital impersonation even declared, “This is not a gimmick,” ironically highlighting the very deception at play.
Indeed, it was a gimmick.
Despite these clear deceptions, the companies behind these and similar campaigns ranked among Facebook’s top political advertisers, according to a recent analysis by the Tech Transparency Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to holding major tech companies accountable.
Researchers from the project and other experts contend that these ads contribute significantly to Facebook’s revenue, causing the platform to overlook a torrent of deceptive, low-quality content, spam, and outright fraud.
“Meta is very aware of these types of scams,” stated Katie A. Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project. “They just didn’t care.”
A report released Wednesday by the project identified 63 advertisers who utilized deceptive or fraudulent tactics. This group accounts for roughly one-fifth of the top 300 political and social advertisers on the platform.
Collectively, these advertisers purchased nearly 150,000 ads, spending close to $49 million over the past seven years, according to data from Facebook’s own ad library.
All 63 advertisers had previously faced removal for violating Facebook’s policies, indicating their deceptive practices were well-known. While Meta did suspend some accounts, over half were still able to post new ads as recently as this week. This analysis suggests that even when Meta intervenes, it has profited from advertisers actively trying to defraud its users.
“The only thing worse than these deepfake A.I. videos being used to scam Americans is the fact that Meta makes tens of millions of dollars off those scam ads,” Senator Warren remarked in a statement regarding her impersonation.
She emphasized, “We need serious guardrails in place to protect consumers online.”
Facebook, owned by Meta, explicitly forbids advertising that employs “identified deceptive or misleading practices, including scams to take money from people or access personal information.” The platform has clear rules against impersonation, and while the video of Ms. Leavitt was eventually removed, not all similar content faced the same fate.
In response, Meta asserted that it rigorously enforces its policies and is committed to “investing in new technical defenses” to combat what it describes as an industry-wide challenge. “Scammers are relentless,” the company’s statement noted, “and constantly evolve their tactics to try to evade detection.”
Facebook has a long history of grappling with criticism over the political ads it hosts. Following Russia’s influence operations during the 2016 presidential election, the platform implemented new restrictions and even temporarily banned political ads after President Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.
Now, with governments worldwide reporting a significant increase in online fraud, Meta faces renewed scrutiny.
Just last week, the Singaporean government issued a directive to Meta, giving the company until the end of the month to address the surge in scam ads and posts impersonating officials. Singapore threatened a daily fine starting at $770,000 if Meta failed to comply.
In the United States, Meta argued in court last year that it “does not owe a duty to users” to combat fraudulent content. However, this legal defense appears to be weakening.
A federal court in California recently denied Facebook’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the company of negligence and breach of contract for facilitating advertiser fraud.
“While Facebook disclaims responsibility for third-party conduct, it maintains responsibility for its own promise to ‘take appropriate action’ to combat scam advertisements and to do so in good faith,” wrote Judge Jeffrey S. White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in his ruling.
Meta’s platforms, including Instagram and WhatsApp, generated $160 billion in ad revenue last year. The analysis of political ads on Facebook represents only a small portion of this total.
Meta preserves political ads in its library for seven years, a transparency measure implemented after the Russian influence operation in 2016. However, ads in other categories are not retained, making it difficult for researchers to fully assess the prevalence of scams.
Facebook has specific requirements for political advertisers, such as requiring them to be registered companies in the United States. Yet, the largely automated process for submitting and approving ads often allows dishonest actors to bypass these checks, experts explain.
For instance, some advertisers examined by the Tech Transparency Project listed contact information in countries like the Philippines, Bangladesh, Vietnam, or Britain, which should have led to disqualification.
“You can be anybody,” stated Iesha White, director of intelligence for Check My Ads, an advocacy group monitoring the digital ad industry. She added that there are “no rigorous checks” on the platform.
White further noted that Meta essentially crowdsources its enforcement, waiting for users or researchers to report fraud. She argued that scams “should be identified before the ads ever run.”
Many of these deceptive ads seem to target older and conservative users and often exploit politically charged events. For example, on the day of Charlie Kirk’s memorial service on September 21, an ad emerged asking if people could forgive his assassin, echoing comments made by his wife, Erika. It urged users to “Click to vote now,” promising a free red “We Are Charlie Kirk” hat, with only a 99-cent shipping fee.
However, the supposedly free hat came with a catch: a mandatory monthly membership to a clothing and merchandise supplier called “End the Wokeness.” Providing credit card details for shipping automatically enrolled users in this subscription.
The Federal Trade Commission has previously issued warnings to consumers about websites that trick them into unwanted subscriptions through “free trial” offers.
Sculpin Media, the company operating under the name “End the Wokeness,” listed page administrators in both the Philippines and the United States. It identifies as a clothing store and media company, operating from a modest office in a low-slung brick warehouse near a former landfill in Staten Island.
A co-owner, who expressed surprise at being found by a reporter, confirmed placing the ads but declined to comment on the record, citing concerns about potential political violence threats. The office contained boxes of red baseball caps emblazoned with “MAGA 2028.” The company’s website is dedicated to selling Trump- and MAGA-themed items, including a “Patriot Pumpkin Carving Kit” featuring Mr. Trump’s mug shot. User complaints about the subscription model and refund requests are prevalent on the company’s own Facebook page.
In August, the Federal Trade Commission reported a fourfold increase in scams targeting older Americans through impersonations of government officials or businesses between 2020 and last year.
Online frauds on social media platforms and other websites now significantly outnumber those conducted via text messages or phone calls. The proliferation of accessible artificial intelligence tools has undoubtedly fueled this surge in deceptive ads, making them easier to create and disseminate.
“This is part of a much larger issue: A.I. is advancing rapidly, but the laws and protections we have in place for everyday Americans are dangerously outdated,” Mr. Sanders stated in response to inquiries about the deepfake featuring him.
The ad featuring Ms. Leavitt was placed by one of four advertisers associated with a group called RFY News Group. Attempts to reach them via a contact number listed in the ad library were unsuccessful.
Neither Ms. Leavitt nor the White House has commented on these deceptive videos.
Meta suspended two of the four advertisers in August, though they had been active for weeks prior. The other two accounts were reportedly removed this week following inquiries about the Tech Transparency Project’s ongoing research, which has monitored RFY News Group for over a year.
Researchers argue that Meta could do more to curb such ads and enhance transparency regarding its enforcement policies. Instead, the company has scaled back its efforts to moderate political content and reduced teams dedicated to platform safety.
“The pendulum has swung toward more short-term revenue considerations versus the long-term health of the platform and the ecosystem,” observed Rob Leathern, a former Meta employee instrumental in creating the ad library, now head of Hawkview Labs, a company assisting online trust and safety startups. “Perhaps at some point it has to swing the other way.”
Eli Tan in San Francisco and Mark Bonamo in New York contributed to this report.