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Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

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Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#281

Post by mrguyorama »

jerf wrote: post #67
cj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is the already-existing trend towards walled gardens will simply continue. When a public space is dangerous, people retreat into "safe" enclosed spaces. - "Never download anything unless it's from the Apple App Store" - "Never buy anything unless you're on amazon.com" - "Dont use the internet outside of ChatGPT"

Yes, but observe how that for all three of the things that immediately came to your mind, you have respectively 1. a thing that still has a lot of scams in it (though it may be the best of the three) [1] 2. A thing so full of scams and fake products that using it is already a minefield (one my mother-in-law is already incapable of navigating successfully, based on the number of shirts my family has gotten with lazy-A…

> It is not possible for Big Tech to exclude scammers

It's 100% possible. It might not be profitable

An app store doesn't have the "The optimum amount of fraud is not zero" problem. Preventing fraudulent apps is not a probability problem, you can actually continuously improve your capability without also blocking "good" apps accidentally.

Meanwhile, apple regularly stymies developers trying to release updates to already working and used by many apps for random things.

And despite that, they let through clear and obvious scams like a "Lastpass" app not made by Lastpass. That's just unacceptable. Anything with a trademark should never be possible to get a scam through. There's no excuse.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#282

Post by ryandrake »

getnormality wrote: post #11

As my children become old enough to have more unfettered internet access, I plan to tell them the lessons of my experience: that all online ads are for products that range from disappointing to fraudulent, so do your best to completely ignore them. I would hope that every parent does the same and we end up with a generation that dries up the revenue for this sick racket. I suppose the next move by advertisers will be…

I think even more general lessons are appropriate: "Anyone approaching you trying to sell you something, is selling garbage." which includes ads but also other forms of unsolicited commercial communication. Or "Anyone approaching you, when you can't figure out what it is they want, is likely trying to sell you garbage." You need to have your shields way up these days.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#283

Post by AJ007 »

macNchz wrote: post #16

Alongside a password manager and keeping things up to date, using an ad blocker is truly a foundational security practice these days. The big advertising players simply have all of the wrong incentives to control this problem. They could massively reduce the volume of scams advertised on their networks, but it’d be worse for them on two fronts: they’d have to pay for more moderation, and they’d lose billions in reven…

The night before this story was published I was pondering what percentage of Youtube ads I was watching were scams -- not 100%, but it was higher than 50%. Which raises questions about semi-legitimate looking items might actually be soft scams or some kind of funny billing stuff going on.

What percent of the global economy is scams? Sure, the investment manager charging 1% a year to put all of your retirement savings in ETFs that also charge 1-1.5% a year funneling money in to companies being raided by executives and employees isn't a scam scam, but it is a massive mis-allocation of resources and probably more damaging than some dumb item purchased from a Meta ad that never showed up. Same for recently legalized (in the US) sports betting.

The startling thing is AI is being applied at scale to make this crap more pervasive. 10% scams? Meta would like advertisers to use their generative AI tools to create image and video ads of non-existent products.

Best thing we can do is delete all phone apps and only access online media from behind firewalls that block all ads and tracking. Windows is dead. Apple is transitioning to an adtech company. Linux is the only option.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#284

Post by nostrademons »

fouronnes3 wrote: post #28
macNchz wrote: post #16

Alongside a password manager and keeping things up to date, using an ad blocker is truly a foundational security practice these days. The big advertising players simply have all of the wrong incentives to control this problem. They could massively reduce the volume of scams advertised on their networks, but it’d be worse for them on two fronts: they’d have to pay for more moderation, and they’d lose billions in reven…

I don't see how the yearly tech support I do with my parents at Christmas will not one day converge to an outright ban of the internet. I am now demoing the level of sofistication of AI powered scams, telling them that it is now entirely possible they will get a VIDEO CALL from me that's not actually me asking for God knows what in a very convincing way using my face and voice. I am scared and this close to setting u…

I think the Internet will, sometime in the near future, just get shut down. That's been what actually happens in countries that are undergoing civil unrest or war like Russia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Tanzania, Israel, Myanmar, etc. And it's fairly likely civil unrest or perhaps even war may spread to an increasing fraction of the developed world too.

So my strategy here has been to start downloading anything that I think I might need from the Internet and keeping a local copy. It's free and abundant now. It could become inaccessible within a matter of minutes if the right powerful person says so. There may be a low probability of that happening, but given the potential disruptions to our life of our always-on connectivity going away, it's worth being prepared.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#285

Post by vadoff »

macNchz wrote: post #16

Alongside a password manager and keeping things up to date, using an ad blocker is truly a foundational security practice these days. The big advertising players simply have all of the wrong incentives to control this problem. They could massively reduce the volume of scams advertised on their networks, but it’d be worse for them on two fronts: they’d have to pay for more moderation, and they’d lose billions in reven…

What if you were required to put down a % of ad spend as a security deposit. Then if you were ever caught running a scam, you’d lose the deposit.

It would make running scams unprofitable, or at the very least cut into profit a lot / disincentivize it.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#286

Post by monknomo »

nutjob2 wrote: post #247
fouronnes3 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how the yearly tech support I do with my parents at Christmas will not one day converge to an outright ban of the internet. I am now demoing the level of sofistication of AI powered scams, telling them that it is now entirely possible they will get a VIDEO CALL from me that's not actually me asking for God knows what in a very convincing way using my face and voice. I am scared and this close to setting u…

In the future AI bots which are a near perfect facsimile of yourself will indeed call, and an AI facsimile of your mother will answer, and once the appropriate security protocols are exchanged, you'll get through. God help anyone not armed with AI in the future, that's why it cannot be locked up by corporations or government.

cannot or should not?

trends point to will be locked up by corporations for the near to medium term

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#287

Post by monknomo »

strogonoff wrote: post #39
malfist wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a situation we accept out of other industries. You water provider doesn't get to pipe you sewage every now and again because its too expensive to moderate. We shouldn't accept it for big tech either. And we certainly shouldn't make it the responsibility of the end use to protect themselves

If everybody on social media was an actual paying customer of social platforms, like we pay mobile providers (I originally wrote “water providers”, which was in fact a somewhat unfit analogy), we could demand better service and switch away to a competitor who offers it. Unfortunately, we are robbed of our ability to pay with our wallets.

I pay good money for phone calls and I get so much spam I don't like to answer the phone.

The paying relationship is not sufficient for these technologies that are required

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#288

Post by danny_codes »

cantor_S_drug wrote: post #225
stusmall wrote: post #129

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.

Zuck and Meta are playing the role of Robinhood. They take the money from scammers and advance their philanthrophy. https://x.com/a16z/status/1986486508355002584 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 centur…

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

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#289

Post by pjc50 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #281
jerf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but observe how that for all three of the things that immediately came to your mind, you have respectively 1. a thing that still has a lot of scams in it (though it may be the best of the three) [1] 2. A thing so full of scams and fake products that using it is already a minefield (one my mother-in-law is already incapable of navigating successfully, based on the number of shirts my family has gotten with lazy-A…

> It is not possible for Big Tech to exclude scammers It's 100% possible . It might not be profitable An app store doesn't have the "The optimum amount of fraud is not zero" problem. Preventing fraudulent apps is not a probability problem, you can actually continuously improve your capability without also blocking "good" apps accidentally. Meanwhile, apple regularly stymies developers trying to release updates to alr…

> Preventing fraudulent apps is not a probability problem

Unfortunately it is. You've even provided examples of a false positive and a false negative. Every discrimination process is going to have those at some rate. It might become very expensive for developers to go through higher levels of verification.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#290

Post by thegrimmest »

mrguyorama wrote: post #281
jerf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but observe how that for all three of the things that immediately came to your mind, you have respectively 1. a thing that still has a lot of scams in it (though it may be the best of the three) [1] 2. A thing so full of scams and fake products that using it is already a minefield (one my mother-in-law is already incapable of navigating successfully, based on the number of shirts my family has gotten with lazy-A…

> It is not possible for Big Tech to exclude scammers It's 100% possible . It might not be profitable An app store doesn't have the "The optimum amount of fraud is not zero" problem. Preventing fraudulent apps is not a probability problem, you can actually continuously improve your capability without also blocking "good" apps accidentally. Meanwhile, apple regularly stymies developers trying to release updates to alr…

> It's 100% possible. It might not be profitable

These are the effectively the same thing. Asking a business to harm its profits is like asking a person to self-harm.

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