Meta: Flying Its Flag for Moving Fast and Breaking Things
December 3, 2025
Another dinobaby original. If there is what passes for art, you bet your bippy, that I used smart software. I am a grandpa but not a Grandma Moses.
Meta, a sporty outfit, is the subject of an interesting story in “Press Gazette,” an online publication. The article “News Publishers File Criminal Complaint against Mark Zuckerberg Over Scam Ads” asserts:
A group of news publishers have filed a police complaint against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg over scam Facebook ads which steal the identities of journalists. Such promotions have been widespread on the Meta platform and include adverts which purport to be authored by trusted names in the media.
Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough, the gold standard for art today.
I can anticipate the outputs from some Meta adherents; for example, “We are really, really sorry.” or “We have specific rules against fraudulent behavior and we will take action to address this allegation.” Or, “Please, contact our legal representative in Sweden.”
The write up does not speculate as I just did in the preceding paragraph. The article takes a different approach, reporting:
According to Utgivarna: “These ads exploit media companies and journalists, cause both financial and psychological harm to innocent people, while Meta earns large sums by publishing the fraudulent content.” According to internal company documents, reported by Reuters, Meta earns around $16bn per year from fraudulent advertising. Press Gazette has repeatedly highlighted the use of well-known UK and US journalists to promote scam investment groups on Facebook. These include so-called pig-butchering schemes, whereby scammers win the trust of victims over weeks or months before persuading them to hand over money. [Emphasis added by Beyond Search]
On November 22, 2025, Time Magazine ran this allegedly accurate story “Court Filings Allege Meta Downplayed Risks to Children and Misled the Public.” In that article, the estimable social media company found itself in the news. That write up states:
Sex trafficking on Meta platforms was both difficult to report and widely tolerated, according to a court filing unsealed Friday. In a plaintiffs’ brief filed as part of a major lawsuit against four social media companies, Instagram’s former head of safety and well-being Vaishnavi Jayakumar testified that when she joined Meta in 2020 she was shocked to learn that the company had a “17x” strike policy for accounts that reportedly engaged in the “trafficking of humans for sex.”
I find it interesting that Meta is referenced in legal issues involving two particularly troublesome problems in many countries around the world. The one two punch is sex trafficking and pig butchering. I — probably incorrectly — interpret these two allegations as kiddie crime and theft. But I am a dinobaby, and I am not savvy to the ways of the BAIT (big AI tech)-type companies. Getting labeled as a party of sex trafficking and pig butchering is quite interesting to me. Happy holidays to Meta’s PR and legal professionals. You may be busy and 100 percent billable over the holidays and into the new year.
Several observations may be warranted:
- There are some frisky BAIT outfits in Silicon Valley. Meta may well be competing for the title as the Most Frisky Firm (MFF). I wonder what the prize is?
- Meta was annoyed with a “tell all” book written by a former employee. Meta’s push back seemed a bit of a tell to me. Perhaps some of the information hit too close to the leadership of Meta? Now we have sex and fraud allegations. So…
- How will Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp innovate in ad sales once Meta’s AI technology is fully deployed? Will AI, for example, block ad sales that are questionable? AI does make errors, which might be a useful angle for Meta going forward.
Net net: Perhaps some journalist with experience in online crime will take a closer look at Meta. I smell smoke. I am curious about the fire.
Stephen E Arnold, December 3, 2025
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