Meta had to come to terms with the fact that through advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, the Chinese-based bad actors were defrauding their users.

Chinese companies are only allowed to advertise abroad; they cannot do it in China.

Because of this, Meta has been able to make huge profits off their Chinese users, and thanks to this, in 2024, the company’s annual sales surpassed $18 billion, about a tenth of global revenue.

Meta found out that a lot of that money was being generated through advertisements of scams, illegal gambling, pornography, as well as other content not allowed on the platforms.

Documents were recently uncovered that show several of Meta’s divisions looking into the matter, but ultimately hesitating to act promptly and stamp out the issue.

After staff at Meta warned higher-ups of their findings, an anti-fraud team was assembled to counteract Chinese scams, which reduced the amount of troublesome ads.

This resulted in a huge loss of revenue in the second half of the year.

Counter-Productive Actions

The team was “asked to pause” after input supposedly from Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive.

Soon after, the team monitoring the ads in China was dispersed, and new Chinese companies were allowed to advertise after...