US senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal have asked the heads of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate revenue from ads on Facebook and Instagram that promote scams and banned goods.“The FTC and SEC should immediately open investigations and, if the reporting is accurate, pursue vigorous enforcement action where appropriate” to force Meta to disgorge profits, pay penalties and agree to cease running such advertisements, Hawley and Blumenthal ...

Group 1: Revenue Generation - Meta Platforms reported a total revenue of $51.2 billion for the third quarter, marking a 26% year-over-year increase, with approximately $50 billion derived from advertising [1] - The company is expected to earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue, approximately $16 billion, from scam advertising in 2024 [6] Group 2: AI and Advertising - CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that improvements in AI ranking systems have led to better performance and efficiency in Meta's advertising business [2] - Meta is utilizing large language models to enhance user engagement and improve recommendation systems [2] Group 3: Scam Advertising Issues - Internal documents reveal that Meta exposes its 3.5 billion users to around 15 billion scam advertisements daily, generating about $7 billion in annualized revenue from these ads [5] - Meta's internal warning systems flag much of the marketing fraud, but advertisers are only banned if they are predicted to be at least 95% likely to commit fraud [6] - If advertisers do not meet the fraud threshold but are still suspected of scamming, Meta imposes higher ad rates as a penalty [7]