November 2025 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Re: [nexa] e-vote, i-vote

by alessandro marzocchi

Il giorno mar 11 nov 2025 alle ore 12:00 <nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it> ha scritto: Mon, 10 Nov 2025 22:59:17 +0100 From: Giacomo Tesio <giacomo(a)tesio.it> wrote Scusa Fabio, On Mon, 10 Nov 2025 17:27:28 +0100 Fabio Alemagna <falemagn(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Al netto di compromissioni del server o di coercizioni a votare in un > determinato modo, Helios Voting è al momento la soluzione migliore > per il voto elettronico a distanza. un sistema che è "sicuro al netto di qualsiasi pericolo reale"... non è sicuro. Ciao Giacomo, non discuto di Helios Voting, non ne ho la competenza, ma neppure il sistema tradizionale è "sicuro al netto di qualsiasi pericolo reale", credo che tutti abbiamo in mente "pericoli reali" del sistema tradizionale, forse qualcuno si ripete anche in questi giorni di vigilia elettorale regionale. Puoi spiegare all'uomo della strada con parole per lui comprensibili quali difetti ha Helios Voting? Comunque grazie e cordialità, buona serata a tutti. Duccio (Alessandro Marzocchi)

Nov. 16, 2025

Fwd: Hyundai Paywalls Brake Pad Changes

by Andrea Trentini

ennesimo esempio di "computing agency rubata", mi piace soprattutto la frase "Electrification of vehicles should simplify repairs, but manufacturers are using it to do the opposite." <https://hackaday.com/2025/11/15/hyundai-paywalls-brake-pad-changes/> -- Andrea Trentini ⠠⠵ - http://atrent.it - public key ID: 0xA7A91E3B - Dip.to di Informatica - Università degli Studi di Milano Cittadinanza Digitale e Tecnocivismo - https://www.ledizioni.it/prodotto/cittadinanza-digitale-tecnocivismo - https://edizionithemis.it/catalogo/digitale-e-societa/dal-tecnocivismo-alla… Sistemi Embedded - https://www.ledizioni.it/prodotto/a-carraturo-a-trentini-sistemi-embedded-t… [se vedete un allegato OpenPGP_0x72C15962A7A91E3B.asc e non riuscite ad aprirlo NON preoccupatevi, è la mia firma digitale, alcuni programmi di posta elettronica (outlook, gmail, ...) non sanno gestirla]

Nov. 16, 2025

Re: [nexa] video pubblicitario 2wai

by maurizio lana

la pubblicità è una strappalacrime micidiale, tra mamme incinte, mamme/nonne che non ci sono più, nipotini, eccetera. sono sentimenti comuni e diffusi, qui sfruttati. che il senso della perdita di persone care sia un dolore spesso irrisolvibile è chiaro. ma che la risposta sia un avatar in grado di esprimersi su cose che il soggetto in esistenza non aveva mai potuto conoscere è pura recita, finzione. vogliamo vivere di finzione? proprio sul tema della perdita e del lutto scrive oggi M. Recalcati (Derrida e l'arte che lieve la terra a chi non c'è più, la Repubblica, 15 novembre 2025) > Ma come fare affinché un addio non sia per sempre? In che modo è > possibile mantenere un rapporto con chi morendo è uscito da ogni > possibile rapporto? In che modo possiamo mantenere un rapporto con chi > «non è più vivo, non è più qui, non ci risponderà più»? Quella che > Derrida definisce come «la gioiosa innocenza dell’ammirazione» non è > forse la risposta in noi di chi non è più con noi? Non è questo > vincolo di libertà che ci spinge a riconoscere nell'incontro che > abbiamo fatto con chi ci ha lasciato l'ordine di una grazia? La > riconoscenza e la gratitudine sono due forme di eredità che, > respingendo la nostalgia del rimpianto, rinviano l’accadere della > morte. La riconoscenza e la gratitudine non implicano però alcuna > identificazione. Non si tratta di essere o di diventare chi non è più > qui, ma di assumere la sua assenza come il resto di un debito fecondo. > È solo la fedeltà all'evento di ciò che il nostro incontro è stato a > mantenere l’evento di quell'incontro ancora vivo, farlo esistere > ancora, a non farlo terminare mai, a fare in modo che continui a > ripetersi, che non smetta di iniziare ancora. ammirazione, riconoscenza, gratitudine, perché nell'incontro che abbiamo fatto con chi ci ha lasciato, riconosciamo l'ordine di una grazia da un lato mi ci riconosco, ben più che in una scimmietta ammaestra che recita mia nonna; dall'altro credo che ci sia anche un significato di interesse pubblico nell'ammirazione, riconoscenza, gratitudine per chi ci ha lasciato al netto poi di tutto quello che in chi ci ha lasciato non ci piaceva, non era né buono né bello tutte parti che nel ricordo possiamo selezionare e valutare compiendo un'operazione formativa e strutturante delle nostre vite. Maurizio Il 14/11/25 11:49, J.C. DE MARTIN ha scritto: > Riguardo al breve video in allegato (fonte: > https://x.com/CalumWorthy/status/1988283207138324487?s=20) l'ottima > Caitlin Jonhstone reagisce come segue. > > Juan Carlos > > *Caitlin Johnstone * > > https://x.com/caitoz/status/1989099985737310714?s=20 > > I hate this. I hate this. IhatethisIhatethisIhatethisIhatethis. > > These predatory AI corporations are trying to convince us that (A) > chatbots are people, and (B) a "person" is nothing more than a certain > appearance with certain speech tendencies. They are attacking the very > philosophical and moral underpinnings of our entire society stretching > back through millennia of human civilization, and they are doing it > for money. > > It's not just this company. I've seen multiple Character AI users > report that when they try to delete their account they get a message > saying, "Are you sure about this? You'll lose everything. Characters > associated with your account, chats, the love that we shared, likes, > messages, posts and the memories we made together." > > They're actively encouraging their users to view their chatbots as > living people with real feelings in order to keep them emotionally > roped in and addicted to their product. > > Their agenda is profoundly destructive, both in the short term and in > the long term. In the short term they are deliberately trying to > instill a new kind of psychological disorder in their users which > causes them to suffer from the delusion that a computer program is a > real person, and in the long term they threaten to unravel our > society's entire understanding of what a person is. > > What's going to happen to a society that starts viewing programmable > software products the same way it views human beings? What happens to > a society where Elizabeth the single mother of three who just lost her > job has the same value as Claire™ from RealHumanAI™, or "Alice", the > AI wankbot that some guy stores in his broom closet? What happens when > a government killing a chatbot company with an antitrust initiative is > seen as identical to a government committing genocide? What happens to > human rights? What happens to human dignity? What happens to the way > we think and feel about ourselves, as individuals and as a collective? > > A person is not merely an appearance with a certain face which makes > sounds in a specific voice and tends to behave in a certain way. A > person is SOMEONE. A conscious, thinking, feeling human being with > hopes and dreams and fears and passions. A human organism which arose > on this planet through ancestry and evolution over unfathomable depths > of time. An indigenous terrestrial which is inseparably interwoven > with the entirety of our biosphere, walking upon this earth having a > subjective experience of all its beauty and wonder using senses > specifically adapted for this environment. > > They're trying to manipulate us into believing we are much, much less > than what we are, just so they can become billionaires and > trillionaires. They are attacking the most sacred parts of us for the > stupidest reasons imaginable. They are enemies of our species. What > they are doing must be rejected with severe revulsion. > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ l’umanità sarà poca, meticcia, zingara e andrà a piedi. avrà per bottino la vita, la più grande ricchezza da trasmettere ai figli erri de luca ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Maurizio Lana Università del Piemonte Orientale Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli

Nov. 15, 2025

Palantir

by de petra giulio

Segnalo il nuovo incontro organizzato dalla Scuola critica del digitale del CRS in collaborazione con il Forum Disuguaglianze e Diversità sul tema: *"Nascita, crescita e futuro di Palantir, l'azienda che vende potere”* ne parlerà *Franco Padella* ne discutono* Stefano Bocconetti, Davide Lamanna, NINA, Michele Mezza, Giacomo Tesio* coordina* Giulio De Petra* A questo indirizzo si può trovare la descrizione dell'incontro: https://share.google/wvaMcITdHqLfONfLX L'incontro si svolgerà a *Roma, venerdì 21 novembre, in via della Dogana Vecchia 5, **a partire dalle 17,30.* Sarà possibile partecipare anche a distanza, collegandosi tramite il link *https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86934113051 * <https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86934113051?pwd=DPOv4iR1r2nhm4h7VcR4xm4oUaJ4En.1> *I conflitti contemporanei, dall’Ucraina al Medio Oriente, sono sempre più guerre digitali, dove le capacità di elaborazione dei dati e l’uso della AI diventano elementi decisivi sul campo di battaglia. Non si combatte più solo con armi fisiche: reti, dati e algoritmi sono ormai il sistema operativo della guerra moderna. **In questo scenario, le Big Tech hanno rafforzato il loro ruolo di fornitori primari dell’apparato industriale-militare degli USA. Ma mentre i riflettori restano accesi sul ristretto gruppo FAMAG (Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google), è un’altra azienda, mediaticamente “minore”, a rappresentare l’esempio più completo e preoccupante della integrazione tra tecnologie digitali e regimi di guerra. Una azienda tanto silenziosa quanto potente: Palantir Technologies.* *Poco visibile rispetto alle altre, si è già profondamente integrata con gli apparati di sicurezza e di guerra americani, e si muove nella stessa direzione in tutti i paesi dell’Occidente. A differenza delle altre aziende Palantir preferisce rimanere in penombra: non vende se stessa al pubblico, non fa pubblicità. Vende potere agli apparati dello stato. Potere di prevedere, di controllare, di dominare. E facendo questo, in qualche modo, diventa essa stessa Stato. * *Palantir sta ridefinendo il volto della guerra. Le sue piattaforme software (come Gotham <https://www.palantir.com/platforms/gotham/>) integrano dati da droni, satelliti, intercettazioni e social media in un quadro operativo coerente, rendendolo indispensabile in teatri complessi. **Palantir ha fornito all’Ucraina software per integrare dati raccolti da fonti multiple – dai satelliti NATO ai combattenti sul campo e ai social media <https://time.com/6691662/ai-ukraine-war-palantir/> – coordinando la risposta militare. E nell’attacco militare alla Palestina, è stato uno dei fornitori chiave di Israele con i suoi strumenti utilizzati per identificare obiettivi a Gaza **All’interno dei confini nazionali, Palantir diventa architetto dei sistemi di sorveglianza più controversi. FBI, NSA e CIA utilizzano da anni i suoi sistemi per azioni di polizia predittiva. Attualmente è fornitore dell’ICE, l’ Immigration and Customs Enforcements, al quale fornisce database e strumenti analitici (tramite la piattaforma Falcon <https://abolishdatacrim.org/en/bestiary/falcon>) per identificare, tracciare e deportare migranti <https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2025/05/01/palantir-deportations-ice-imm…>. Mentre il Dipartimento della Salute le ha affidato la propria piattaforma HHS Protect per aggregare e analizzare dati sanitari nazionali <https://techinquiry.org/?text=palantir%25252520hhs&guard=>. **Ma Palantir è già presente anche in Europa. In Germania 3 dei 16 stati federali stanno utilizzando il software Gotham, mentre ha coinciso con la visita di Trump in Inghilterra la notizia dell’avvio di una forte partnership <https://invezz.com/it/notizie/2025/09/18/palantir-rafforza-la-presenza-nel-…> tra l’azienda e il ministero della Difesa britannico. In Italia il Policlinico Gemelli ha siglato nel 2023 una partnership per realizzare attività di ricerca nella medicina digitale, basata sulla gestione dei dati ospedalieri <https://www.policlinicogemelli.it/news-eventi/gemelli-e-palantir-technologi…>.* *E’ possibile non solo conoscere, comprendere e denunciare le conseguenze negative di questa colonizzazione tecnologica, ma anche riuscire a contrastarla?*

Nov. 15, 2025

Re: [nexa] video pubblicitario 2wai

by 380°

On 2025-11-14, Stefano Quintarelli via nexa wrote: [...] > Per questo, insieme al senatore Lombardo, ho proposto emendamenti alla legge sulla tutela dei minori nella dimensione digitale, ora al Senato, per limitare la memoria dei chatbot che interagiscono con i minori. Conservare le conversazioni solo per pochi giorni riduce il rischio di creare attacca- mento “simulato”, illusione di un rappor- to reale perché "tutela dei minori"?!? gli esseri umani in genere non meritano di essere tutelati dal rischio di attaccamento o dipendenza verso un chatbot che simula un caro defunto, sia esso madre, padre, fratello, amico, amante?!? perché deve essere permesso questo /traffico/ delle persone, seppure nella dimensione cibernetica: non dovrebbe essere illegale punto e basta? ...e poi, vogliamo smetterla di /inventarci/ leggi superspecializzate nel taglio del capello in quattro che già è palesemente impossibile applicare il GDPR! infine: ma il GDPR non dovrebbe /proteggere/ i dati _personali_ anche da questo tipo di nauseabondi abusi? O 'sta _manfrina_ del consenso vale per lasciar fare laqualunque?!? ...o sono io che sono massimalista, talebano, idealista... e anche un po' stronzo?!? [...] Saluti, 380° -- 380° (lost in /traslation/) «Welcome to the chaos of the times If you go left and I go right Pray we make it out alive This is Karmageddon»

Nov. 14, 2025

Re: [nexa] video pubblicitario 2wai

by 380°

Buongiorno, grazie per la segnalazione! On 2025-11-14, J.C. DE MARTIN wrote: > Riguardo al breve video in allegato (fonte: > https://x.com/CalumWorthy/status/1988283207138324487?s=20) l'ottima > Caitlin Jonhstone reagisce come segue. > > Juan Carlos > > *Caitlin Johnstone * > > https://x.com/caitoz/status/1989099985737310714?s=20 > > I hate this. I hate this. IhatethisIhatethisIhatethisIhatethis. beh dopo essersi ripreso a fatica dal conato di vomito per aver visto il video sopra, anche il mio alter ego dice: Iodio! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uepgU63b-U [...] > They are enemies of our species. What they are doing must be rejected with severe revulsion. ben detto, fanno proprio schifo. -- 380° (lost in /traslation/) «Welcome to the chaos of the times If you go left and I go right Pray we make it out alive This is Karmageddon»

Nov. 14, 2025

Re: [nexa] video pubblicitario 2wai

by Andrea Bolioli

Grazie per la condivisione. Sul tema dell'attaccamento emotivo dei giovani ai chatbot, segnalo articoletto del Sole24ore di oggi: https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/il-418percento-adolescenti-difficolta-ha-ch… Non ho letto il Report di Save the Children citato nell'articolo: https://www.savethechildren.it/cosa-facciamo/pubblicazioni/xvi-atlante-dell… Andrea B. On Fri, Nov 14, 2025 at 12:11 PM Stefano Quintarelli via nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> wrote: > > attinente, la lettera di Giulia Pastorella al Foglio di oggi: > > ... serve una > riflessione sugli impatti emotivi che queste > tecnologie hanno sullo sviluppo affettivo. > Per questo, insieme al senatore Lombardo, > ho proposto emendamenti alla legge sulla > tutela dei minori nella dimensione digita- > le, ora al Senato, per limitare la memoria > dei chatbot che interagiscono con i minori. > Conservare le conversazioni solo per pochi > giorni riduce il rischio di creare attacca- > mento “simulato”, illusione di un rappor- > to reale. > -- > > mi sembra un'ottima iniziativa > > > > On 14/11/25 11:49, J.C. DE MARTIN wrote: > > Riguardo al breve video in allegato (fonte: https://x.com/CalumWorthy/ > > status/1988283207138324487?s=20), l'ottima Caitlin Jonhstone reagisce > > come segue. > > > > Juan Carlos > > > > *Caitlin Johnstone * > > > > https://x.com/caitoz/status/1989099985737310714?s=20 > > > > I hate this. I hate this. IhatethisIhatethisIhatethisIhatethis. > > > > These predatory AI corporations are trying to convince us that (A) > > chatbots are people, and (B) a "person" is nothing more than a certain > > appearance with certain speech tendencies. They are attacking the very > > philosophical and moral underpinnings of our entire society stretching > > back through millennia of human civilization, and they are doing it for > > money. > > > > It's not just this company. I've seen multiple Character AI users report > > that when they try to delete their account they get a message saying, > > "Are you sure about this? You'll lose everything. Characters associated > > with your account, chats, the love that we shared, likes, messages, > > posts and the memories we made together." > > > > They're actively encouraging their users to view their chatbots as > > living people with real feelings in order to keep them emotionally roped > > in and addicted to their product. > > > > Their agenda is profoundly destructive, both in the short term and in > > the long term. In the short term they are deliberately trying to instill > > a new kind of psychological disorder in their users which causes them to > > suffer from the delusion that a computer program is a real person, and > > in the long term they threaten to unravel our society's entire > > understanding of what a person is. > > > > What's going to happen to a society that starts viewing programmable > > software products the same way it views human beings? What happens to a > > society where Elizabeth the single mother of three who just lost her job > > has the same value as Claire™ from RealHumanAI™, or "Alice", the AI > > wankbot that some guy stores in his broom closet? What happens when a > > government killing a chatbot company with an antitrust initiative is > > seen as identical to a government committing genocide? What happens to > > human rights? What happens to human dignity? What happens to the way we > > think and feel about ourselves, as individuals and as a collective? > > > > A person is not merely an appearance with a certain face which makes > > sounds in a specific voice and tends to behave in a certain way. A > > person is SOMEONE. A conscious, thinking, feeling human being with hopes > > and dreams and fears and passions. A human organism which arose on this > > planet through ancestry and evolution over unfathomable depths of time. > > An indigenous terrestrial which is inseparably interwoven with the > > entirety of our biosphere, walking upon this earth having a subjective > > experience of all its beauty and wonder using senses specifically > > adapted for this environment. > > > > They're trying to manipulate us into believing we are much, much less > > than what we are, just so they can become billionaires and > > trillionaires. They are attacking the most sacred parts of us for the > > stupidest reasons imaginable. They are enemies of our species. What they > > are doing must be rejected with severe revulsion. > > > > > > > > > > -- > You can reach me on Signal: @quinta.01 (no Whatsapp, no Telegram) >

Nov. 14, 2025

Re: [nexa] video pubblicitario 2wai

by Stefano Quintarelli

attinente, la lettera di Giulia Pastorella al Foglio di oggi: ... serve una riflessione sugli impatti emotivi che queste tecnologie hanno sullo sviluppo affettivo. Per questo, insieme al senatore Lombardo, ho proposto emendamenti alla legge sulla tutela dei minori nella dimensione digita- le, ora al Senato, per limitare la memoria dei chatbot che interagiscono con i minori. Conservare le conversazioni solo per pochi giorni riduce il rischio di creare attacca- mento “simulato”, illusione di un rappor- to reale. -- mi sembra un'ottima iniziativa On 14/11/25 11:49, J.C. DE MARTIN wrote: > Riguardo al breve video in allegato (fonte: https://x.com/CalumWorthy/ > status/1988283207138324487?s=20), l'ottima Caitlin Jonhstone reagisce > come segue. > > Juan Carlos > > *Caitlin Johnstone * > > https://x.com/caitoz/status/1989099985737310714?s=20 > > I hate this. I hate this. IhatethisIhatethisIhatethisIhatethis. > > These predatory AI corporations are trying to convince us that (A) > chatbots are people, and (B) a "person" is nothing more than a certain > appearance with certain speech tendencies. They are attacking the very > philosophical and moral underpinnings of our entire society stretching > back through millennia of human civilization, and they are doing it for > money. > > It's not just this company. I've seen multiple Character AI users report > that when they try to delete their account they get a message saying, > "Are you sure about this? You'll lose everything. Characters associated > with your account, chats, the love that we shared, likes, messages, > posts and the memories we made together." > > They're actively encouraging their users to view their chatbots as > living people with real feelings in order to keep them emotionally roped > in and addicted to their product. > > Their agenda is profoundly destructive, both in the short term and in > the long term. In the short term they are deliberately trying to instill > a new kind of psychological disorder in their users which causes them to > suffer from the delusion that a computer program is a real person, and > in the long term they threaten to unravel our society's entire > understanding of what a person is. > > What's going to happen to a society that starts viewing programmable > software products the same way it views human beings? What happens to a > society where Elizabeth the single mother of three who just lost her job > has the same value as Claire™ from RealHumanAI™, or "Alice", the AI > wankbot that some guy stores in his broom closet? What happens when a > government killing a chatbot company with an antitrust initiative is > seen as identical to a government committing genocide? What happens to > human rights? What happens to human dignity? What happens to the way we > think and feel about ourselves, as individuals and as a collective? > > A person is not merely an appearance with a certain face which makes > sounds in a specific voice and tends to behave in a certain way. A > person is SOMEONE. A conscious, thinking, feeling human being with hopes > and dreams and fears and passions. A human organism which arose on this > planet through ancestry and evolution over unfathomable depths of time. > An indigenous terrestrial which is inseparably interwoven with the > entirety of our biosphere, walking upon this earth having a subjective > experience of all its beauty and wonder using senses specifically > adapted for this environment. > > They're trying to manipulate us into believing we are much, much less > than what we are, just so they can become billionaires and > trillionaires. They are attacking the most sacred parts of us for the > stupidest reasons imaginable. They are enemies of our species. What they > are doing must be rejected with severe revulsion. > > > > -- You can reach me on Signal: @quinta.01 (no Whatsapp, no Telegram)

Nov. 14, 2025

[POSTICIPATO] 17° Convegno Annuale del Centro Nexa | 15 dicembre 2025

by Nexa - Media

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Visto lo sciopero generale indetto per la giornata del 12 dicembre, vi segnaliamo che il 17° Convegno Annuale del Centro Nexa è stato posticipato a lunedì 15 dicembre 2025. Seguiranno a breve ulteriori informazioni circa il programma della giornata. Vi ringraziamo per l’attenzione, Un saluto cordiale, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/a – 10138 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it<mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

Nov. 14, 2025

Bombshell report exposes how Meta relied on scam ad profits to fund AI

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/bombshell-report-exposes-how-me…> “High risk” versus “high value” Meta goosed its revenue by targeting users likely to click on scam ads, docs show. Internal documents have revealed that Meta has projected it earns billions from ignoring scam ads that its platforms then targeted to users most likely to click on them. In a lengthy report <https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraud…>, Reuters exposed five years of Meta practices and failures that allowed scammers to take advantage of users of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Documents showed that internally, Meta was hesitant to abruptly remove accounts, even those considered some of the “scammiest scammers,” out of concern that a drop in revenue could diminish resources needed for artificial intelligence growth. Instead of promptly removing bad actors, Meta allowed “high value accounts” to “accrue more than 500 strikes without Meta shutting them down,” Reuters reported. The more strikes a bad actor accrued, the more Meta could charge to run ads, as Meta’s documents showed the company “penalized” scammers by charging higher ad rates. Meanwhile, Meta acknowledged in documents that its systems helped scammers target users most likely to click on their ads. “Users who click on scam ads are likely to see more of them because of Meta’s ad-personalization system, which tries to deliver ads based on a user’s interests,” Reuters reported. Internally, Meta estimates that users across its apps in total encounter 15 billion “high risk” scam ads a day. That’s on top of 22 billion organic scam attempts that Meta users are exposed to daily, a 2024 document showed. Last year, the company projected that about $16 billion, which represents about 10 percent of its revenue, would come from scam ads. “High risk” scam ads strive to sell users on fake products or investment schemes, Reuters noted. Some common scams in this category that mislead users include selling banned medical products, or promoting sketchy entities, like linking to illegal online casinos. However, Meta is most concerned about “imposter” ads, which impersonate celebrities or big brands that Meta fears may halt advertising or engagement on its apps if such scams aren’t quickly stopped. “Hey it’s me,” one scam advertisement using Elon Musk’s photo read. “I have a gift for you text me.” Another using Donald Trump’s photo claimed the US president was offering $710 to every American as “tariff relief.” Perhaps most depressingly, a third posed as a real law firm, offering advice on how to avoid falling victim to online scams. Meta removed these particular ads after Reuters flagged them, but in 2024, Meta earned about $7 billion from “high risk” ads like these alone, Reuters reported. Sandeep Abraham, a former Meta safety investigator who now runs consultancy firm Risky Business Solutions as a fraud examiner, told Reuters that regulators should intervene. “If regulators wouldn’t tolerate banks profiting from fraud, they shouldn’t tolerate it in tech,” Abraham said. Meta won’t disclose how much it made off scam ads Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters that its collection of documents—which were created between 2021 and 2025 by Meta’s finance, lobbying, engineering, and safety divisions—“present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams.” Stone claimed that Meta’s estimate that it would earn 10 percent of its 2024 revenue from scam ads was “rough and overly-inclusive.” He suggested the actual amount Meta earned was much lower but declined to specify the true amount. He also said that Meta’s most recent investor disclosures note that scam ads “adversely affect” Meta’s revenue. “We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it, and we don’t want it either,” Stone said. Despite those efforts, this spring, Meta’s safety team “estimated that the company’s platforms were involved in a third of all successful scams in the US,” Reuters reported. In other internal documents around the same time, Meta staff concluded that “it is easier to advertise scams on Meta platforms than Google,” acknowledging that Meta’s rivals were better at “weeding out fraud.” As Meta tells it, though seemingly dismal, these documents came amid vast improvements in its fraud protections. Stone told Reuters that “over the past 18 months, we have reduced user reports of scam ads globally by 58 percent and, so far in 2025, we’ve removed more than 134 million pieces of scam ad content,” Stone said. According to Reuters, the problem may be the pace Meta sets in combating scammers. In 2023, Meta laid off “everyone who worked on the team handling advertiser concerns about brand-rights issues,” then ordered safety staffers to limit use of computing resources to devote more resources to virtual reality and AI. A 2024 document showed Meta recommended a “moderate” approach to enforcement, plotting to reduce revenue “attributable to scams, illegal gambling and prohibited goods” by 1–3 percentage points each year since 2024, supposedly slashing it in half by 2027. More recently, a 2025 document showed Meta continues to weigh how “abrupt reductions of scam advertising revenue could affect its business projections.” Eventually, Meta “substantially expanded” its teams that track scam ads, Stone told Reuters. But Meta also took steps to ensure they didn’t take too hard a hit while needing vast resources—$72 billion—to invest in AI, Reuters reported. For example, in February, Meta told “the team responsible for vetting questionable advertisers” that they weren’t “allowed to take actions that could cost Meta more than 0.15 percent of the company’s total revenue,” Reuters reported. That’s any scam account worth about $135 million, Reuters noted. Stone pushed back, saying that the team was never given “a hard limit” on what the manager described as “specific revenue guardrails.” “Let’s be cautious,” the team’s manager wrote, warning that Meta didn’t want to lose revenue by blocking “benign” ads mistakenly swept up in enforcement. Meta should donate scam ad profits, ex-exec says Documents showed that Meta prioritized taking action when it risked regulatory fines, although revenue from scam ads was worth roughly three times the highest fines it could face. Possibly, Meta most feared that officials would require disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, rather than fines. Meta appeared to be less likely to ramp up enforcement from police requests. Documents showed that police in Singapore flagged “146 examples of scams targeting that country’s users last fall,” Reuters reported. Only 23 percent violated Meta’s policies, while the rest only “violate the spirit of the policy, but not the letter,” a Meta presentation said. Scams that Meta failed to flag offered promotions like crypto scams, fake concert tickets, or deals “too good to be true,” like 80 percent off a desirable item from a high-fashion brand. Meta also looked past fake job ads that claimed to be hiring for Big Tech companies. Rob Leathern previously led Meta’s business integrity unit that worked to prevent scam ads but left in 2020. He told Wired <https://www.wired.com/story/scam-ads-are-flooding-social-media-these-former…> that it’s hard to “know how bad it’s gotten or what the current state is” since Meta and other social media platforms don’t provide outside researchers access to large random samples of ads. With such access, researchers like Leathern and Rob Goldman, Meta’s former vice president of ads, could provide “scorecards” showing how well different platforms work to combat scams. Together, Leathern and Goldman launched a nonprofit called CollectiveMetrics.org <https://www.collectivemetrics.org/> in hopes of “bringing more transparency to digital advertising in order to fight deceptive ads,” Wired reported. “I want there to be more transparency. I want third parties, researchers, academics, nonprofits, whoever, to be able to actually assess how good of a job these platforms are doing at stopping scams and fraud,” Leathern told Wired. “We’d like to move to actual measurement of the problem and help foster an understanding.” Another meaningful step that Leathern thinks companies like Meta should take to protect users would be to notify users when Meta discovers that they clicked on a scam ad—rather than targeting them with more scam ads, as Reuters suggested was Meta’s practice. “These scammers aren’t getting people’s money on day one, typically. So there’s a window to take action,” he said, recommending that platforms donate ill-gotten gains from running scam ads to “fund nonprofits to educate people about how to recognize these kinds of scams or problems.” “There’s lots that could be done with funds that come from these bad guys,” Leathern said. Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Nov. 14, 2025