Meta banned 3.5B fake accounts in 2025 as fraud reaches 43% of global population

The sheer volume of account removals—38 billion over eight years—demonstrates that Meta’s monetization engine is inextricably linked to large-scale automated fraud. For streaming platforms and premium publishers, this remains a key competitive differentiator, as high-decibel brand safety risks on social platforms drive deterministic ad spend toward more controlled environments. Marketers must now reconcile the reach of Meta's 3.5 billion daily active users with the risk that a significant portion of the impressions they buy flow through the same infrastructure supporting daily scam operations. Watch for whether Meta lowers its 95% automated certainty threshold for banning suspicious accounts, a move that would prioritize platform integrity over high-risk revenue streams.

In the months following the VAB report, Meta has intensified its legal and technical counter-measures. Per a March 2026 announcement from the Meta Newsroom, the company removed 159 million scam ads in 2025 and participated in a joint operation with the Royal Thai Police and the FBI that disabled 150,000 accounts tied to international scam centers. Despite these efforts, external reporting from The Wall Street Journal in May 2025 noted that fraud rings from Southeast Asia and China have utilized deepfakes and celebrity impersonation at such scale that Meta currently provides specific image protection for over 500,000 public figures.

Regulators have also increased pressure on the company’s revenue-driven enforcement models. Per Reuters in late 2025, leaked internal documents indicated Meta safety teams were instructed not to shut down accounts that could cost the company more than $135 million, citing specific revenue guardrails. This tension between growth and safety has led to new policy shifts in 2026. According to AuditSocials, Meta rolled out a multimodal AI review system in Q1 2026 that scans every advertisement before the first impression is served, shifting from reactive to proactive enforcement. Furthermore, Meta announced in June 2026 its intent for verified advertisers to drive 90% of total ad revenue by the end of the year to curb the influence of unverified entities.