Fresh evidence has emerged on how social media platforms are raking in profits from scam advertising, with a new analysis claiming that tech giants made £430m last year from fraudulent ads in the UK alone.
An investigation by Juniper Research, commissioned by challenger bank Revolut, found that UK social media users saw on average 185 scam ads a month, which lost them a collective £44m.
The UK was found to lead Europe when it comes to victims of fraudulent ads, with nearly 11% of the total European revenue from the practice coming from ads targeted to a British audience.
In Europe, social media firms profited around £4.4bn last year from scam ads targeting their user base, with fraudulent ads running wild across Facebook, Instagram, and X.
The issue is pervasive, with around 10% of all social media advertising profit in Europe stemming from fraudulent ads.
According to Juniper Research, the problem is so insidious because of the way social media platforms review ads; verification of an ad usually only takes place once the ad is paid for and published, leaving a window for fraudsters to target real users before their ad is taken down, if this happens at all.
If the system does not change, Juniper Research warns that social media platforms could gain nearly £9bn from scam ads by 2030.
Last month, a study by forex broker BrokerChooser claimed that social meda ads account for over a third (34%) of reported online scam incidents, with Meta platforms exposing users to a whopping 15 billion “high-risk” scam ads every day, and dodgy ads generating roughly $7bn in annualised revenue for the social media giant.
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