Meta says that it has removed over 159 million scam ads and taken down 10.9 million scam accounts on Facebook and Instagram. The company is also today launching new anti-scam tools on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. These aim to alert you to the three most common scam tactics used …
Scamming is big business, and is a major problem on all of Meta’s platforms. The company says that it took down more than 159 million scam ads last year and removed 10.9 million accounts on Facebook and Instagram used by scamming gangs.
AI tools to detect more scams
Meta is now using AI tools to help detect scams.
Scammers use subtle tricks and deceptive framing that are hard to catch with traditional detection systems. Our experts and specialists in combating scams built advanced AI systems that can analyze multiple signals — such as text, images, and the surrounding context — to spot a broader range of more sophisticated scam patterns faster and at scale.
These efforts are focused on detecting two main things:
- Impersonation of celebrities, public figures, and brands
- Links to fraudulent webpages designed to mimic legitimate ones
New alerts for users
Meta will also display alerts designed to highlight activity which hasn’t been positively identified as a scam but which shows some potential warning signs.
Any Facebook user will be aware of fake friend requests. These are sometimes entirely random, but also include cloning genuine accounts of your existing friends. The scammers hope you’ll either think you weren’t already friends with the person or that they’ve opened a new account.
Meta says it will now alert you to requests from accounts without many mutual friends, people who appear to be based in a different country, and those who joined Facebook very recently.
On WhatsApp, an increasingly common scam is to try to persuade you to link your account to a new device. The messaging app will now highlight the country in which the device is based and make it clear that you are granting access to all of your messages, as well as allowing someone to impersonate you.
Finally, Facebook Messenger now aims to detect indications of common scams like fake job offers. The app will alert you that it appears suspicious and invite you to activate an AI scam review.
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