Leaked internal Meta documents show the company estimated that scam and policy-violating ads generated around 10% of its global ad revenue in 2021, roughly USD 16 billion a year, even as it publicly assured regulators that harmful content was under control.
The figure comes from internal revenue modeling referenced in legal filings and whistleblower disclosures. It suggests Meta was privately tracking a scam ad economy worth tens of billions while telling users and lawmakers the problem was small and aggressively policed.
For context, Meta’s total revenue in 2021 was USD 117.9 billion. The internal estimate implies that one dollar in every ten came from ads the company had officially banned. That same year, Meta spent billions on safety staff and systems, yet its own teams calculated that fraudulent and prohibited advertising was slipping through at industrial scale.
The Denmark Angle
Denmark has one of the highest social media penetration rates in the EU. Eurostat data for 2023 show that 89% of Danish internet users aged 16 to 74 used social networks, compared with an EU average of 59%. For the roughly 720,000 foreign born residents in Denmark, Facebook groups and Instagram feeds are often the primary infrastructure for finding housing, jobs, and community.
When those platforms carry a higher than acknowledged volume of scams, newcomers unfamiliar with Danish consumer law and often operating in a second language are disproportionately at risk. Danish police and banks reported online fraud losses of roughly DKK 1.1 to 1.3 billion in 2023, with industry reports consistently naming Facebook and Instagram among the main distribution channels.
What Changed
Meta has been designated a very large online platform under the EU Digital Services Act since August 2023. That means it must file formal risk assessments with the European Commission and act on systemic harms. Meta’s first DSA reports acknowledged general risks around disinformation and illegal content but gave no concrete internal estimates of revenue from policy violating ads.
The newly leaked document, reported by Danish broadcaster TV2, fits a broader pattern. Internal research on mental health was also reportedly shelved when it showed uncomfortable results. According to leaked materials cited by Swedish outlet Placera in late 2025, Meta stopped an internal investigation that found people who quit Facebook became less depressed and less anxious.
Under DSA rules, the European Commission can impose fines of up to 6% of a platform’s global annual turnover for serious non compliance. For Meta, using 2023 revenue of USD 134.9 billion, that implies a theoretical maximum fine of about USD 8.1 billion, or roughly DKK 55 to 60 billion.
The Scam Economy
Critics inside and outside Meta argue the company has a structural profit incentive to tolerate a certain level of harmful advertising. Scam ads are lucrative and expensive to police. Internal modeling cited by researchers suggests these ads may have enabled around USD 50 billion in annual theft from Americans alone through frauds promoted on Meta platforms.
That figure dwarfs the USD 10.2 billion in total consumer fraud losses across all channels reported by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2023. The discrepancy illustrates how much larger Meta’s internal harm estimates may be than public enforcement data. Meta typically counters by citing its 40,000 staff working on safety and billions spent on enforcement, and points to falling prevalence metrics for hate speech and other violations.
But the gap between internal knowledge and public messaging raises questions for Danish regulators applying the DSA. The law requires platforms to assess actual or foreseeable negative effects on fundamental rights, language that potentially covers suppressed mental health findings and undisclosed scam revenue models.
What You Can Do
EU residents, including foreigners living in Denmark, have a legal right to complain about content decisions on very large platforms. Users who encounter scam ads on Facebook or Instagram should report them via the ad menu and file a complaint with Danish police at politiet.dk. Contact your bank immediately if you lose money.
The Danish Consumer Ombudsman accepts complaints about misleading marketing, even when the advertiser is abroad. Foreign residents can get free advice in English from Forbrugerrådet Tænk and the European Consumer Centre Denmark. For mental health support linked to social media use, Denmark’s public health system offers low cost psychological counseling to anyone with a CPR number and health card.
You can also exercise your GDPR rights by requesting access to or deletion of your data from Meta’s EU controller in Ireland. The company must respond within one month. Denmark does not yet have a dedicated compensation scheme for victims of platform promoted scams, so restitution depends on banking rules and negotiated refunds. That leaves many foreign residents with limited recourse if they are tricked by an ad they reasonably assumed had been vetted.
