The ads are a window into a blatantly illegal underground economy that Meta is not only failing to moderate, but is actively profiting from and injecting into users’ feeds.
Where I live it’s largely the same though on facebook marketplace and not on instagram. Counterfeit money, weapons (which are almost completely illegal where I live, even basic non-lethal things like pepper spray and tasers) and more than anything prostitution. The thing is, these are “sponsored ads” which are all supposedly screened and approved manually. Also you can report them and Facebook won’t take them down.
Before someone suggests it cause I’ve seen this response a couple times in this thread already: No, I am not searching those things or related products on Facebook or elsewhere on the web.
Also Met’s estimate that only 1 out of every 2000 ads violates their policy is straight up laughable. There’s no way they themselves believe that. I would say at least 25% of the ads I see are of this nature. Literally dozens a day.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@lemmy.world
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Where I live it’s largely the same though on facebook marketplace and not on instagram. Counterfeit money, weapons (which are almost completely illegal where I live, even basic non-lethal things like pepper spray and tasers) and more than anything prostitution. The thing is, these are “sponsored ads” which are all supposedly screened and approved manually. Also you can report them and Facebook won’t take them down.
Before someone suggests it cause I’ve seen this response a couple times in this thread already: No, I am not searching those things or related products on Facebook or elsewhere on the web.
Also Met’s estimate that only 1 out of every 2000 ads violates their policy is straight up laughable. There’s no way they themselves believe that. I would say at least 25% of the ads I see are of this nature. Literally dozens a day.