Once I got an Instagram ad for buying ketamine that just linked to a telegram channel. They didn't even bother being coy or using mispelling or slang. A simple keyword search to flag for more review would have caught it. I can't even wrap my head around what internal controls exist when something like that makes it out to users.
The bad actor serves a benign ad to the ad review system, and only serves the scam to real users. It's called "cloaking" - an interesting (but a bit depressing) topic to explore.
So the ad review system is just requesting the ad from the advertiser, and not ever bothering to disguise itself? Didn't we have this shit figured out for brick-and-mortar restaurant reviews decades ago?
As far as I understood, the problem happens when the ad has a link to a website. I can't imagine that happening with static images or videos that don't link a website (that could be solved quite trivially...)
Oh definitely. I have zero expectation of high level of manual reviews. You can run limited runs of adds for next to a couple dollars. The math could never work out. I understand a lot with make it through the system, this was just so blatant. It should be so easy to catch with an automated system. It was nothing but red flags. The automated systems could reject outright or maybe escalate to manual review if it met enough criteria (account reputation, spend floor, etc)
Meta wants to have big scammers. It's hugely profitable. That's why they codified internal policy that if the scam generates at least 0.15% of Meta's revenue, they must be protected and never moderated.
There was a big "bombshell" report on this yesterday (it didn't hit HN frontpage though).
Meta knowingly gets a lot of its funding from scams. They love it! They don't care about technical solutions for it: they've banned any solutions from being implemented because it would impact revenue.
Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg on Curing All Disease
We sat down with Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, co-founders of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, to discuss their ambitious plan to cure, prevent, and manage all disease by the end of the century.
Zuck has donated something like 2% of his net worth. Not really “ambitious”. For a normal American that’s like donating to “cars for kids” every 8 years when you upgrade your Mercedes and claiming you’re a philanthropist
