"Meta estimates that ten percent of the company’s annual revenue comes from fraudulent ads on its services – amounting to a dizzying 16 billion dollars.
– Meta is earning billions from consumers being scammed. Even if the company gets fined – a process that takes years – the fines we have seen so far only amount to a fraction of these profits. In other words, Meta has no incentive to solve the problem. Meanwhile, the company doesn’t lift a finger to help its users, whether their profiles are misused in the scam ads, or they fall victim to the scams, Myrstad says. "
It should be easy: 10% of revenue from fraudulent ads? Fines amounting to 15% of the total revenue. This way, Meta will be incentivized to invest ~5% of its revenue on getting rid of that 10%.
Considering that 10% percent estimate seems to come from Meta themselves, if they were fined that amount what would stop them from just estimating lower next time?
Obviously you would have some estimation from government-authorized auditors. Yes there is the usual risk of bribes etc with the money at play here but then the risks for the corporation climb as well.
Yes but also include accountability in the boardroom. If illegal things happen, a human needs to see court, not a company. Let the "risk takers" actually take on risk.
The US Postal Service seems to derive upwards of 90% of their revenue (Or at least of the mail I receive) from similar scams. Are they going to have the same fines applied to them?
And you can't escape. Facebook is less of a concern because you can just not go to the website and you're good. The US Postal Service is the basis of an entire huge industry devoted to finding you at your physical location to try to scam you.
You have a very different profile of junk mail than I do. While the services may be overpriced or of dubious quality, they are rarely outright scams the way FB marketplace frequently is.
The US Postal Service doesn't serve the American people, by its own admission. I can find the quote from the Postmaster General if you like, but the gist of it was "the 400 direct mailers are our customers". They are a spam company that has outlived its usefulness, if ever it had any. Don't fine them, dissolve them.
How would you find a government entity? This is just moving money from one government budget to another.
The USPS is like this because of the persistent belief that it's not enough for government entities (think USPS, Amtrak, etc) to provide a good service for the citizens - they must also (try to) turn a profit.
If we as a society considered it acceptable for the USPS to spend money to ensure everyone in the US had mail access without selling out to corporations to turn a profit, they wouldn't need to have products like EDDM blasting spam to entire zip codes.
The whole governmental agencies should be profit seeking businesses needs to died ignobly in a ditch. The reason we pay taxes is so that we don't have to handle the logistics of running the thing we pay for.
From the sources I have seen, that 10% was a projection for 2024, with goals to significantly reduce it in 2025 and 2026 onward. It also includes "banned" goods, which are not necessarily fraudulent nor illegal. I have not seen any data on whether or not Meta has achieved their goals of reducing fraud and banned goods advertising.
And somehow they are allowed to continue operating, and we accept them saying "we couldn't possibly actually police all this content! There's just too much of it. We're too large for such concerns!"
I really wish the rest of us could turn around and say, to their faces "That sounds like a you problem"
Perhaps not, but that was my feeling on watching the Norwegian version, although to be fair, I was bothered enough that I only watched the first half.
Defending my opinion, though, I felt that both had tall somewhat socially awkward men dressed in oddly formal manners giving monologues to the camera. Scenewise, I thought slamming the drawer was a direct echo of slamming the shutters. And kicking the rock in the street echoed throwing the bottles in the street. And so forth.
Interesting that you don't think it's a knockoff. Given the theme, I found it ironic that it was itself an inferior copy. It ruined it for me.
The Norwegian Consumer Council's entire yearly budget is about 100M NOK, or about $9.5M USD at the current exchange rate. They most assuredly did not spend >$1M USD on a short video clip.
To achieve a better digital world, where technology works for people
rather than against them, several steps must be taken:
1. Rebalance power between service providers and
consumers. People should be allowed to control their digital
experiences and decide how they want to use products that
they own. It should be possible and practical to switch to
alternative service providers, or tweak services they already
use to suit their needs and preferences.
2. Tackle dependency on Big Tech. To lay the groundwork for
innovative products and services and pave the way for
alternatives to Big Tech, competition in digital markets must be
restored. Technology based on principles such as openness,
interoperability and portability must be advanced through
strategic investments. For example, the public sector should
leverage its power as a major procurer to support alternatives
to big tech through exploring options for ethical procurement
of technology services.
3. Double down on the enforcement of existing laws. Far
from hindering innovation, regulations provide crucial
guardrails to guide innovation and ensure a level playing field.
Weak enforcement allows big tech to continue its damaging
practices at the cost of freedom of choice, service quality, and
innovation. To remedy this, enforcement of existing laws must
be strong and vigorous. This includes the DMA and
competition laws more broadly, but also other digital rules
such as the GDPR and consumer law.
4. Close the existing legal loopholes by adopting a strong
Digital Fairness Act. Increase legal certainty and address
loopholes in the legislation to better protect people for
instance against deceptive and addictive design, and unfair
personalisation.
What is a fraudulent ad?
If a massive health influencer promotes a "healthy" powder that in labs does not show health benefits - do we consider it a fraudulent ad?
On Facebook? It's ads for products where they do a bait and switch or claim to have some kind of "difficulty" and never ship a product or ship some garbage instead.
Example: My wife saw an ad for decorative skulls that were made in such a way that you can safely put them in a campfire for Halloween. They had a video and everything, it looked pretty good. She orders a set and they get delayed, then she gets and email saying that US Customs would not let them in the country and they instead ship a $0.50 plastic Christmas tree ornament instead and immediately ghost her.
We reported the company to Facebook but it continued to run for weeks. I've also seen ads for $500 Aventon E-bike "closeout" that's clearly a scam, reported it, and had no action from Facebook. Another ad for an all metal "puzzle kit" of a V8 engine listed for $50 that I guarantee is fake. Every day I get ads that would not have passed the smell test from any reviewer yet continue to run.
I'm sure this will be downvoted but the fact that the front page of this site features photos of the organizers means to me, this is a promotional movement for these people, not a serious organization. Seeing their faces filling up large portions of the front page means the actual supposed point of their supposed purpose is being subverted for self promotion.
the front page does not feature the organizers, it features links to a video and a seminar, and the seminar and the video happen to feature the speakers. featuring speakers of a seminar is what i expect, because i want to know who is talking.
"Meta estimates that ten percent of the company’s annual revenue comes from fraudulent ads on its services – amounting to a dizzying 16 billion dollars.
– Meta is earning billions from consumers being scammed. Even if the company gets fined – a process that takes years – the fines we have seen so far only amount to a fraction of these profits. In other words, Meta has no incentive to solve the problem. Meanwhile, the company doesn’t lift a finger to help its users, whether their profiles are misused in the scam ads, or they fall victim to the scams, Myrstad says. "
It should be easy: 10% of revenue from fraudulent ads? Fines amounting to 15% of the total revenue. This way, Meta will be incentivized to invest ~5% of its revenue on getting rid of that 10%.
Considering that 10% percent estimate seems to come from Meta themselves, if they were fined that amount what would stop them from just estimating lower next time?
Obviously you would have some estimation from government-authorized auditors. Yes there is the usual risk of bribes etc with the money at play here but then the risks for the corporation climb as well.
Yes but also include accountability in the boardroom. If illegal things happen, a human needs to see court, not a company. Let the "risk takers" actually take on risk.
The US Postal Service seems to derive upwards of 90% of their revenue (Or at least of the mail I receive) from similar scams. Are they going to have the same fines applied to them?
And you can't escape. Facebook is less of a concern because you can just not go to the website and you're good. The US Postal Service is the basis of an entire huge industry devoted to finding you at your physical location to try to scam you.
You have a very different profile of junk mail than I do. While the services may be overpriced or of dubious quality, they are rarely outright scams the way FB marketplace frequently is.
Common carrier vs. curated platform?
If you think there is actual fraud going on via the US mail, report it. The Postal Service takes mail fraud very seriously.
But I suspect you mean to say 90% of what ends up in your mailbox is junk. If that's the case, there's a fix for that, too:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36131222
Is ought fallacy. Just because this is happening, doesn’t mean it should happen. Cannot derive morality from current situation. See Hume
The US Postal Service doesn't serve the American people, by its own admission. I can find the quote from the Postmaster General if you like, but the gist of it was "the 400 direct mailers are our customers". They are a spam company that has outlived its usefulness, if ever it had any. Don't fine them, dissolve them.
How would you find a government entity? This is just moving money from one government budget to another.
The USPS is like this because of the persistent belief that it's not enough for government entities (think USPS, Amtrak, etc) to provide a good service for the citizens - they must also (try to) turn a profit.
If we as a society considered it acceptable for the USPS to spend money to ensure everyone in the US had mail access without selling out to corporations to turn a profit, they wouldn't need to have products like EDDM blasting spam to entire zip codes.
The whole governmental agencies should be profit seeking businesses needs to died ignobly in a ditch. The reason we pay taxes is so that we don't have to handle the logistics of running the thing we pay for.
From the sources I have seen, that 10% was a projection for 2024, with goals to significantly reduce it in 2025 and 2026 onward. It also includes "banned" goods, which are not necessarily fraudulent nor illegal. I have not seen any data on whether or not Meta has achieved their goals of reducing fraud and banned goods advertising.
Considering the absolute deluge of politicians and celebrities allegedly promoting financial scams on norwegian Facebook my hunch is absolutely not.
And somehow they are allowed to continue operating, and we accept them saying "we couldn't possibly actually police all this content! There's just too much of it. We're too large for such concerns!"
I really wish the rest of us could turn around and say, to their faces "That sounds like a you problem"
It’s like fake products on Amazon. The numbers are jaw dropping, the punishment non existent.
If a real store had that much fake stock it would be shut overnight.
Where is that quote sourced?
https://www.forbrukerradet.no/news-in-english/digital-produc...
You can find the 10% from scam thing all over the place. ala-
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...
[dead]
Seriously the production value on that video is way too good
The deadpan irony is on point. Something it seems the Norwegians have perfected.
Another one of my favorite examples of this (an ad for Oslo tourism): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vhD59ac7nw
The Javazone videos were legendary too, very similarly Norwegian and very similarly overproduced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnqAXuLZlaE
I think a city should feel a little hard to get
I mean that's fine I guess. But the best deadpan Norwegian sketch is kammelåså: https://youtu.be/s-mOy8VUEBk
I was bothered that it seemed to be an extremely direct copy of this 2008 German commercial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mTLO2F_ERY
It took the same scenes, but in keeping with the theme, made them slightly worse.
If they didn't acknowledge this somewhere, they should be called out on it.
I'm not sure I see it to be honest? Yes, they are both guys that bother others, but their motives are different.
"Mr. W" is a personification of the wind that can't help his existence flinging things, but finds a new purpose.
The "Enshittificator" is a person modifying consumer products more directly, and it ends badly, but he's happy about it.
Going in I was expecting scene-for-scene similarities, but it wasn't that close.
Perhaps not, but that was my feeling on watching the Norwegian version, although to be fair, I was bothered enough that I only watched the first half.
Defending my opinion, though, I felt that both had tall somewhat socially awkward men dressed in oddly formal manners giving monologues to the camera. Scenewise, I thought slamming the drawer was a direct echo of slamming the shutters. And kicking the rock in the street echoed throwing the bottles in the street. And so forth.
Interesting that you don't think it's a knockoff. Given the theme, I found it ironic that it was itself an inferior copy. It ruined it for me.
> I felt that both had tall somewhat socially awkward men
Northern europeans cast northern europeans in commercials you say?
Wow gotta agree. It was satire I think, but... not sure. Also the below link to the Oslo ad was also great. Thx for this, RF
100%! I thought it was going to be way shittier. Suspect a budget > $1M was spent.
The Norwegian Consumer Council's entire yearly budget is about 100M NOK, or about $9.5M USD at the current exchange rate. They most assuredly did not spend >$1M USD on a short video clip.
From the english letter:
To achieve a better digital world, where technology works for people rather than against them, several steps must be taken:
1. Rebalance power between service providers and consumers. People should be allowed to control their digital experiences and decide how they want to use products that they own. It should be possible and practical to switch to alternative service providers, or tweak services they already use to suit their needs and preferences.
2. Tackle dependency on Big Tech. To lay the groundwork for innovative products and services and pave the way for alternatives to Big Tech, competition in digital markets must be restored. Technology based on principles such as openness, interoperability and portability must be advanced through strategic investments. For example, the public sector should leverage its power as a major procurer to support alternatives to big tech through exploring options for ethical procurement of technology services.
3. Double down on the enforcement of existing laws. Far from hindering innovation, regulations provide crucial guardrails to guide innovation and ensure a level playing field. Weak enforcement allows big tech to continue its damaging practices at the cost of freedom of choice, service quality, and innovation. To remedy this, enforcement of existing laws must be strong and vigorous. This includes the DMA and competition laws more broadly, but also other digital rules such as the GDPR and consumer law.
4. Close the existing legal loopholes by adopting a strong Digital Fairness Act. Increase legal certainty and address loopholes in the legislation to better protect people for instance against deceptive and addictive design, and unfair personalisation.
I hope this leads to them pushing for Jolla and similar to not be locked out of banking apps (and EU IDs…)
Reinstate strong powers to understand and adapt devices you own, rather than pandering to US industry interests.
What is a fraudulent ad? If a massive health influencer promotes a "healthy" powder that in labs does not show health benefits - do we consider it a fraudulent ad?
On Facebook? It's ads for products where they do a bait and switch or claim to have some kind of "difficulty" and never ship a product or ship some garbage instead.
Example: My wife saw an ad for decorative skulls that were made in such a way that you can safely put them in a campfire for Halloween. They had a video and everything, it looked pretty good. She orders a set and they get delayed, then she gets and email saying that US Customs would not let them in the country and they instead ship a $0.50 plastic Christmas tree ornament instead and immediately ghost her.
We reported the company to Facebook but it continued to run for weeks. I've also seen ads for $500 Aventon E-bike "closeout" that's clearly a scam, reported it, and had no action from Facebook. Another ad for an all metal "puzzle kit" of a V8 engine listed for $50 that I guarantee is fake. Every day I get ads that would not have passed the smell test from any reviewer yet continue to run.
Do you see this as different than the example I gave of a health influencer promoting a health powder with false claims?
Public funding was spent on this garbage?
It is so nice to see that in reality there already are useful laws to combat enshittification, we just need to use them.
It is also hopeful that publicly funded organisation asks for better governance rather than just bowing down.
Obviously it is in the Zeitgeist to do this now, could (should) have been written 20years ago, but who would have listened?
- ubisoft is the greatest example of this in gaming
- the fact that r/ubisoft doesnt have as many weekly visitors as r/fuckubisoft should tell you something is seriously seriously wrong with them
I'm sure this will be downvoted but the fact that the front page of this site features photos of the organizers means to me, this is a promotional movement for these people, not a serious organization. Seeing their faces filling up large portions of the front page means the actual supposed point of their supposed purpose is being subverted for self promotion.
the front page does not feature the organizers, it features links to a video and a seminar, and the seminar and the video happen to feature the speakers. featuring speakers of a seminar is what i expect, because i want to know who is talking.
[dead]
[flagged]
Proud of myself for recognizing this was a bot without having to inspect further than this comment!
<nvm, accidentally talked to a bot>
You're replying to a likely bot account, check their comment history
Oh shit. Talking to a copypasta was less embarrassing