The Scam Empire

Globally, Meta accounts for 54 percent of reported scams (and as much as 58 percent in Poland), meaning more than half. A veritable scam empire living in complete symbiosis with criminals. Between 2023 and 2025, Poles lost PLN 1.8 billion as a result of online fraud, and it can be assumed that toxic ads displayed across Meta’s social media ecosystem played a significant role in those losses.

For several weeks now, there has once again been considerable attention surrounding the practice of placing scam ads on Facebook and other platforms within Meta’s universe, using the images of public figures. In the past, celebrities, politicians and athletes have fallen victim to scammers (including Anna and Robert Lewandowski), while today one can encounter ads featuring images of Donald Tusk, Adam Glapiński or – until recently – InPost CEO Rafał Brzoska and his wife, Omenaa Mensah. It was the latter who decided to take the bull by its horns, declaring war on the American Big Tech giant and publicly calling the management of Meta’s Polish branch to account. The initial response was as bizarre as it was arrogant: Rafał Brzoska’s Instagram profile was blocked, which says a great deal about the mentality of the internet giant’s management. Brzoska, however, did not back down. He took the matter to court, intervened with the Ministry of Digital Affairs, and launched the „150 percent” initiative, calling for Meta to be fined an amount equal to 150 percent of the profits generated from publishing fraudulent ads. In addition, together with Sebastian Kondracki, founder of the SpeakLeash Foundation, he presented ScamWatch, an artificial intelligence-based tool designed to identify scam advertisements.

The Ministry of Digital Affairs also sprang into action – Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski sent the European Commission a request to impose a EUR 250 million (approx. PLN 1 billion) fine on Meta. The European Commission, which has its own scores to settle with Meta, responded favorably to the request, and its spokesperson, Thomas Regnier, said that the materials provided by Poland would be taken into account in the ongoing proceedings against Meta. At the same time, however, he criticized Poland for not yet having fully implemented the EU Digital Services Act (DSA). Well, on that point he should take issue with Minister Gawkowski, who, in legislation prepared by his ministry, attempted to turn the Office of Electronic Communications into an internet super-censor – something President Karol Nawrocki rightly vetoed. Nevertheless, Rafał Brzoska has already scored his first victory in the battle: the court upheld the decision of the President of the Personal Data Protection Office (UODO) prohibiting Meta Platforms from running advertisements featuring the image of the InPost CEO and his wife.

It is a good thing that something is finally being done on a larger scale about the problem of toxic advertising – it is a pity that this happened only after Meta stepped on the toes of an influential businessman and one of Poland’s wealthiest people, someone with enough clout who was willing to embark on a private crusade. The problem concerns not only the theft of public figures’ images, but above all ordinary users who have fallen victim to fraud. The main culprit, however, remains Meta, which fully knowingly tolerates this criminal practice, turning it into a significant source of revenue. According to Reuters, in 2024 Meta earned as much as USD 16 billion from scam ads, accounting for 10 percent of its annual revenue. According to Rafał Brzoska’s calculations, meanwhile, Meta earns PLN 20 million a day from such advertisements in Poland. Only ads with a probability of fraud exceeding 95 percent are automatically blocked. For those classified below this threshold, Meta has instead introduced a system of „pricing penalties”, the perfidy of which lies in the fact that the ads are allowed through, only at a higher price – meaning Meta earns more from running them. In addition, the algorithms are designed so that after a single click on such an ad, the user is immediately shown more of them, generating further views and thereby increasing profits. As if that were not enough, in 2023 Meta disbanded its ad safety teams, and in 2025 it imposed limits stipulating that blocking scams could not cost the company more than USD 135 million per six months.

Taking all of this into account, it is impossible to conclude that Meta does not know what is happening on its social media platforms or that it is unable to counteract the pathology. It knows perfectly well and is capable of effectively blocking scammers (after the court ruling, the ads featuring Brzoska disappeared in an instant). There is nothing accidental about this – it is a deliberately adopted business model and an activity harmful to users, generating tangible social losses. Globally, Meta accounts for 54 percent of reported scams (and as much as 58 percent in Poland), meaning more than half. A veritable scam empire living in complete symbiosis with criminals. Between 2023 and 2025, Poles lost PLN 1.8 billion as a result of online fraud, and it can be assumed that toxic ads displayed across Meta’s social media ecosystem played a significant role in those losses. On top of this are the costs borne by state institutions involved in combating online fraud – for example, UOKiK estimated the cost of such proceedings at PLN 550,000 annually. We therefore have, on the one hand, the socialization of losses and, on the other, the privatization of profits by a Big Tech oligarch who stands above the law and has grown accustomed to impunity. How much longer? .

The article was published in the weekly newspaper „Gazeta Finansowa”.