Facebook’s scamception

It’s famously frustrating for people and organisations to be impersonated by scammers, even if it makes for good business for Facebook.

Last month’s reporting from Reuters that 10% of Meta’s advertising revenue, or US$16bn, comes from scammers was certainly eye-opening. It means that Meta likely writes more ad revenue from organised crime than the entire news media industry makes in legitimate advertising.

Still, Dr Mumbo does wonder whether Facebook could, at the very least, manage not to run ads impersonating, um, Facebook.

Facebook even accepts ads from scammers pretending to be Facebook