I deal with domain impersonation and fraudulent ad takedowns nearly every day. A year ago, Meta would remove fake ads falsely using my company’s branding within a day or two. Now these same ads run for over a month with no action taken. This isn’t just an inconvenience these scams cause real harm. The money fraudsters extract fuels their expansion into larger operations. Meta has become completely negligent in its enforcement responsibilities and shows no empathy for the victims it enables. Meta is the single largest enabler of this fraud ecosystem the operations fund human trafficking, force, labor, and systematic financial fraud, targeting vulnerable populations, particularly elderly victims, who lose their life savings at a point in time where they have no time to earn it back. Every dollars these criminals make through Meta platform goes to some of the most depraved actors on the planet.

I don’t accept the excuse it’s too hard. If they have to spend $10 billion per year to maintain an acceptable level trust on their platforms then so be it. It’s the cost of doing business. If I went into a mall and opened up a fake Wells Fargo bank branch it would be shut down pretty instantly by human intervention. These are the conditions most businesses run under. Why should these platforms given such leeway just because ‘it’s hard’? Size and scale shouldn’t be an excuse. If its not viable to prevent fraud then they don’t have a viable business.

We have laws on truth in advertising, and we should start holding advertising channels liable if they don't do enough due diligence.

Yes, it's not that it's impossible, it's that it's impossible while operating how they want to operate, scaling as much as they want to scale, and profiting as much as they want to profit. But no business model that can't be pursued ethically and profitably should be execused as simply inevitably unethical. It should be regulated and/or banned.

YouTube regularly shows me ads that fit that analogy quite well. The ECB and Elon Musk take turns offering me guaranteed monthly deposits in my account for one time 200 and 400 euro fees. The deep fakes are intentionally bad enough to filter for good victims.

You don't even need a human to review these ads but inserting one wouldn't be expensive.

But what actually is an acceptable level of trust? Acceptable for whom? For the billionaires, it's good enough if outside is worse, or even if it merely appears worse.

The top of the market started at the bottom. Entry level is requiring higher and higher skills and capabilities.