Ex-Meta Staffers Fight Back Against Scam Ads on Social Media
â–¼ Summary
– Rob Leathern served as Meta’s public face for combating scam ads, leading their business integrity unit and overseeing transparency initiatives like the Ad Library.
– Since leaving Meta in 2020, Leathern has observed that scam ads have evolved with deepfakes and AI, while platform investments in countermeasures have stagnated.
– Leathern co-founded the nonprofit CollectiveMetrics.org with former Meta executive Rob Goldman to increase transparency and measure the prevalence of deceptive digital ads.
– Global scam losses are estimated at over a trillion dollars annually, with 23% of people reporting financial losses to scams according to a 2025 report.
– Many scam victims don’t report incidents due to shame or uncertainty, and over a third of those who did report saw no action taken by platforms.
The battle against fraudulent online advertisements is intensifying, with former Meta executives taking matters into their own hands. Rob Leathern, who once led the company’s business integrity initiatives, has grown increasingly concerned about the surge in AI-generated scam ads. Despite his earlier efforts to enhance ad transparency and security, Leathern believes that progress has stalled in recent years. He points out that platforms are not investing enough in the necessary teams and technologies to combat these sophisticated scams effectively.
During his tenure at Meta, Leathern was the public figurehead for the fight against deceptive advertising. He managed the unit responsible for safeguarding Meta’s ad products from abuse and introduced industry-leading tools like the Meta Ad Library. This free, searchable database of digital ads, along with identity verification for political advertisers, represented significant steps toward accountability. However, since departing the company in late 2020, Leathern has observed criminals adopting more advanced tactics, including deepfakes and artificial intelligence, to create highly convincing fraudulent content.
Alarmed by the escalating threat, Leathern has joined forces with Rob Goldman, Meta’s former vice president of ads, to establish CollectiveMetrics.org. This nonprofit organization aims to bring greater transparency to digital advertising by using data and analysis to measure the prevalence of online scam ads. Their mission is to pull back the curtain on the opaque ad systems that generate immense revenues for tech giants, helping to protect consumers from exploitation.
Their initiative arrives at a critical moment, as global scam-related losses reach staggering levels. According to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, victims worldwide lost an estimated one trillion dollars last year alone. The alliance’s 2025 Global State of Scams report reveals that nearly a quarter of all people have fallen prey to financial scams. Compounding the problem, many victims do not come forward due to shame or uncertainty about where to report these crimes. Among those who did file reports, more than a third stated that the platform involved took no action in response.
Leathern emphasizes that both the persistence and funding behind these deceptive campaigns make them exceptionally difficult to counter. He recalls telling Reuters back in 2019, while handling a high-profile case involving Dutch billionaire John de Mol, that scammers are constantly refining their methods to bypass platform defenses. Today, he notes the lack of objective measures to gauge the true scale of the problem, underscoring the urgent need for independent oversight and improved detection mechanisms.
(Source: Wired)
