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Team combatting fraud at Meta’s Chinese ad partners dispanded after Zuckerberg input

与 Meta 中国广告合作伙伴打击欺诈的团队在扎克伯格的干预下解散

Meta to probe foreign agencies using Chinese partners for ad fraud after Reuters report

在路透社报道后，Meta 将调查使用中国合作伙伴进行广告欺诈的外国机构

Meta’s partner protections enable harmful ads to remain active longer

Meta 的合作伙伴保护措施使有害广告的活跃时间延长

By Jeff Horwitz and Engen Tham

作者：Jeff Horwitz 和 Engen Tham

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 15 (Reuters) -

旧金山，12 月 15 日（路透社）-

Last year, Meta had to reckon with an ugly conclusion about its Chinese advertising customers: They were defrauding Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users worldwide.

去年，Meta 不得不面对一个令人不快的结论：其中国广告客户正在欺诈全球的 Facebook、Instagram 和 WhatsApp 用户。

Though China’s authoritarian government bans use of Meta social media by its citizens, Beijing lets Chinese companies advertise to foreign consumers on the globe-spanning platforms. As a result, Meta’s advertising business was thriving in China, ultimately reaching over $18 billion in annual sales in 2024, more than a tenth of the company’s global revenue.

尽管中国的专制政府禁止其公民使用 Meta 社交媒体，但北京允许中国公司在全球范围的平台上向外国消费者投放广告。因此，Meta 的广告业务在中国蓬勃发展，最终在 2024 年达到了超过 180 亿美元的年销售额，占公司全球收入的十分之一以上。

But Meta calculated that about 19% of that money – more than $3 billion – was coming from ads for scams, illegal gambling, pornography and other banned content, according to internal Meta documents reviewed by Reuters.

但 Meta 计算出，大约 19% 的收入——超过 30 亿美元——来自于诈骗、非法赌博、色情和其他被禁止内容的广告，根据路透社审查的 Meta 内部文件。

The documents are part of a cache of previously unreported material generated over the past four years by teams including Meta’s finance, lobbying, engineering and safety divisions. The cache reveals Meta’s efforts over that period to understand the scale of abuse on its platforms and the company’s reluctance to introduce fixes that could undermine its business and revenues.

这些文件是过去四年中由包括 Meta 的财务、游说、工程和安全部门在内的团队生成的一批未报告材料的一部分。这批材料揭示了 Meta 在此期间努力了解其平台上滥用行为的规模，以及公司对引入可能削弱其业务和收入的修复措施的犹豫。

The documents show that Meta believed China was the country of origin of roughly a quarter of all ads for scams and banned products on Meta’s platforms worldwide. Victims ranged from shoppers in Taiwan who purchased bogus health supplements to investors in the United States and Canada who were swindled out of their savings. “We need to make significant investment to reduce growing harm,” Meta staffers warned in an internal April 2024 presentation to leaders of its safety operations.

文件显示，Meta 认为中国是全球范围内大约四分之一诈骗和被禁止产品广告的来源国。受害者包括在台湾购买虚假保健品的购物者，以及在美国和加拿大被诈骗的投资者。“我们需要进行重大投资以减少日益严重的危害，” Meta 员工在 2024 年 4 月的一次内部演示中向其安全运营领导警告。

To that end, Meta created an anti-fraud team that went beyond previous efforts to monitor scams and other banned activity from China. Using a variety of stepped-up enforcement tools, it slashed the problematic ads by about half during the second half of 2024 – from 19% to 9% of the total advertising revenue coming from China.

为此，Meta 创建了一个反欺诈团队，超越了之前监控来自中国的诈骗和其他被禁止活动的努力。通过多种加强执法工具，它在 2024 年下半年将问题广告减少了约一半——从 19% 降至 9%。

Then Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg weighed in.

然后，Meta 首席执行官马克·扎克伯格发表了意见。

“As a result of Integrity Strategy pivot and follow-up from Zuck,” a late 2024 document notes, the China ads-enforcement team was “asked to pause” its work. Reuters was unable to learn the specifics of the CEO’s involvement or what the so-called “Integrity Strategy pivot” entailed.

“由于诚信战略的转变和扎克伯格的后续跟进，” 一份 2024 年晚些时候的文件指出，中国广告执法团队被 “要求暂停” 其工作。路透社未能了解首席执行官的具体参与情况或所谓的 “诚信战略转变” 包含的内容。

But after Zuckerberg’s input, the documents show, Meta disbanded its China-focused anti-scam team. It also lifted a freeze it had introduced on granting new Chinese ad agencies access to its platforms. One document shows that Meta shelved yet other anti-scam measures that internal tests had indicated would be effective. The document didn’t detail the specifics of those measures.

但在扎克伯格的干预后，文件显示，Meta 解散了其专注于中国的反诈骗团队。它还解除了一项对新中国广告代理商访问其平台的冻结。一份文件显示，Meta 搁置了其他内部测试表明有效的反诈骗措施。该文件未详细说明这些措施的具体内容。

Meta took these steps even as an outside consultant it hired produced research that warned “Meta’s own behaviour and policies” were fostering systemic corruption in the Chinese market for ads targeting users in other countries, additional documents show.

尽管如此，Meta 采取了这些步骤，因为它聘请的外部顾问所做的研究警告称，“Meta 自身的行为和政策” 正在助长中国市场针对其他国家用户的广告的系统性腐败，其他文件显示。

The upshot: Within a few months of Meta’s brief crackdown, a new crop of Chinese advertising agencies was flooding Facebook and Instagram with prohibited ads. By mid-2025, banned ads climbed back to about 16% of Meta’s China revenue.

结果是：在 Meta 短暂打击后的几个月内，一批新的中国广告代理商开始向 Facebook 和 Instagram 涌入被禁止的广告。到 2025 年中，禁止广告再次攀升至 Meta 中国收入的约 16%。

Rob Leathern, who headed Meta’s business integrity operations until 2019 and is no longer at the company, said the scale of predatory advertising revealed in the documents represents a major breakdown in consumer protections at the social media giant.

Rob Leathern，曾在 2019 年前负责 Meta 的商业诚信运营，现已离开公司，他表示，文件中揭示的掠夺性广告规模代表了社交媒体巨头在消费者保护方面的重大失误。

“The levels that you’re talking about are not defensible,” he said of the percentage of abusive ads. “I don’t know how anyone could think this is okay.”

“你所谈论的水平是不可辩护的，” 他谈到滥用广告的比例时说。“我不知道任何人怎么会认为这是可以接受的。”

In a statement to Reuters, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the work of the special team devoted to fighting Chinese fraud was always meant to be temporary. Zuckerberg’s order to teams working on scams and other high-risk harms, he said, “was to redouble efforts to reduce them all across the globe, including in China.”

在给路透社的声明中，Meta 发言人安迪·斯通表示，专门打击中国欺诈的特别团队的工作始终是临时的。他表示，扎克伯格对处理诈骗和其他高风险危害的团队的指示是 “加倍努力减少全球范围内的这些问题，包括在中国。”

As part of its normal enforcement processes, Stone said, Meta’s automated systems over the past 18 months have blocked or removed 46 million ads submitted through its Chinese business partners, usually before users saw them. Stone said Meta has severed relationships with unspecified Chinese agencies over misbehavior in the past and that the company docks commissions for Chinese partners that run too many violating ads.

斯通表示，作为其正常执法流程的一部分，Meta 在过去 18 个月中已阻止或删除了 4600 万条通过其中国业务合作伙伴提交的广告，通常是在用户看到之前。斯通表示，Meta 已与因不当行为而与不明中国代理商断绝关系，并且公司会对投放过多违规广告的中国合作伙伴扣除佣金。

“Scams are spiking across the internet, driven by persistent criminals and sophisticated, organized crime syndicates constantly evolving their schemes to evade detection,” Stone wrote. “We are focused on rooting them out by using advanced technical measures and new tools, disrupting criminal scam networks, working with industry partners and law enforcement, and raising awareness on our platforms.”

“网络诈骗正在激增，受到持续犯罪分子和不断演变的有组织犯罪集团的推动，他们不断改进其方案以逃避检测，” 斯通写道。“我们专注于通过使用先进的技术手段和新工具，打击犯罪诈骗网络，与行业合作伙伴和执法部门合作，并在我们的平台上提高意识来根除这些问题。”

The statement didn’t address many of the questions Reuters asked Meta about the documents, the policy discussions reflected in them, or the business decisions the company took as a result.

该声明未回应路透社关于文件、反映其中的政策讨论或公司因此采取的商业决策的许多问题。

The revelations about Meta’s China business come at a time when the social media giant is already under fire for failing to curtail a deluge of advertising that promotes fraud and banned goods.

关于 Meta 中国业务的揭露恰逢社交媒体巨头因未能遏制大量推广欺诈和被禁止商品的广告而受到批评。

Reuters reported last month

路透社上个月报道，

that Meta earns $7 billion a year just from the portion of scam ads it considers “high risk,” and that 10% of the company’s 2024 revenue – about $16 billion – was projected to come from ads for scams, illegal gambling and banned products. Following the story,

Meta 每年仅从其认为 “高风险” 的诈骗广告部分就赚取 70 亿美元，预计 2024 年公司约 10% 的收入——约 160 亿美元——将来自诈骗、非法赌博和被禁止产品的广告。随后，

two U.S. senators called on

两位美国参议员呼吁

the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to look into the matter and “pursue vigorous enforcement action where appropriate.”

证券交易委员会和联邦贸易委员会对此事进行调查，并 “在适当情况下采取强有力的执法行动。”

Nowhere are the tradeoffs Meta makes between protecting its users and protecting its revenue clearer than in China, a market unlike any other the company operates in. Meta staff in the internal documents characterize China as the company’s top “Scam Exporting Nation” and identify the country as the single largest source for a surge in fraud on its platforms.

在中国，Meta 在保护用户与保护收入之间的权衡显得尤为明显，这个市场与公司运营的其他市场截然不同。Meta 内部文件中的员工将中国称为公司最大的 “诈骗输出国”，并将该国视为其平台上诈骗激增的最大来源。

The Chinese government didn’t respond to detailed questions sent by Reuters for this report to offices including the commerce, foreign and public-security ministries and its agencies for market and cyberspace administration.

中国政府没有对路透社为本报告发送的详细问题作出回应，这些问题涉及包括商务部、外交部和公共安全部在内的多个部门及其市场和网络空间管理机构。

China is so central to Meta’s scam problem that the company believes its national holidays affect the level of fraud on Facebook and Instagram globally: During the “Golden Week” holiday in October, when hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens travel, the rate of scams on Meta’s platforms declines worldwide, one document notes.

中国在 Meta 的诈骗问题中占据如此重要的地位，以至于该公司认为其国庆假期会影响 Facebook 和 Instagram 上的全球诈骗水平：一份文件指出，在十月的 “黄金周” 假期期间，数亿中国公民出行，Meta 平台上的诈骗率在全球范围内下降。

The harm inflicted on consumers by the tech giant’s Chinese advertisers can be immense: In March 2025, federal prosecutors in Illinois said that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation seized $214 million in proceeds from the promoters of one fraud that used Facebook and Instagram ads to lure victims into a Chinese stock scam. When users clicked on the ads, they were routed into WhatsApp groups run by “individuals in China posing as U.S.-based investment advisors,” said the prosecutors in a statement. Those “advisers” ultimately steered the victims into purchasing stock at vastly inflated prices, they said.

科技巨头的中国广告商对消费者造成的伤害可能是巨大的：2025 年 3 月，伊利诺伊州的联邦检察官表示，美国联邦调查局从一个利用 Facebook 和 Instagram 广告诱骗受害者进入中国股票诈骗的推广者那里查获了 2.14 亿美元的收益。当用户点击广告时，他们被引导进入由 “在中国冒充美国投资顾问的个人” 管理的 WhatsApp 群组，检察官在一份声明中表示。这些 “顾问” 最终引导受害者以极高的价格购买股票。

The prosecutors charged seven people from Taiwan and Malaysia, still believed to be at large abroad, with wire fraud and securities fraud. The FBI declined to provide additional details on the case, and the Department of Justice didn’t respond to a request for comment.

检察官指控七名来自台湾和马来西亚的人，仍被认为在国外潜逃，涉及电信诈骗和证券诈骗。FBI 拒绝提供该案件的更多细节，司法部也未对此请求作出回应。

Stone, the Meta spokesperson, told Reuters the company cooperated with law enforcement and removed thousands of accounts involved in the scheme.

Meta 发言人 Stone 告诉路透社，该公司与执法部门合作，删除了数千个参与该计划的账户。

“LITTLE OR NO RISK” FOR FRAUDSTERS

“几乎没有风险” 对于诈骗者来说

In China, Meta sells most of its ads through 11 major Chinese ad agency partners, referred to as “top tier resellers.” Those big players both sell ads and recruit smaller advertising agencies, most but not all based in China, to purchase Facebook and Instagram ads through their systems. The Meta spokesperson told Reuters that company policy forbids Chinese partners from working with ad agencies or advertisers outside of China. Meta will investigate instances of such conduct that Reuters raised in this report, he added.

在中国，Meta 通过 11 家主要的中国广告代理合作伙伴销售大部分广告，这些代理被称为 “顶级转售商”。这些大玩家既销售广告，又招募较小的广告代理，大多数但并非全部位于中国，通过他们的系统购买 Facebook 和 Instagram 广告。Meta 发言人告诉路透社，公司政策禁止中国合作伙伴与中国以外的广告代理或广告商合作。他补充说，Meta 将调查路透社在本报告中提到的此类行为。

The second-tier agencies, meanwhile, work with an ever-changing roster of advertisers who aren’t interacting directly with the big agencies or Meta itself. As a result of this complex set-up, an opaque system of intermediaries exists.

与此同时，二级代理与不断变化的广告商名单合作，这些广告商并未直接与大代理或 Meta 本身互动。因此，形成了一个不透明的中介系统。

The system is prone to facilitating advertisements for scams, illegal gambling and banned goods, according to internal documents, former staffers and a detailed report conducted for Meta by Propellerfish, the London-based consultants who warned that the company’s own behavior was encouraging fraud. Meta hired the consultancy last year to study why its business in China was generating so much banned advertising.

根据内部文件、前员工和为 Meta 进行的详细报告，系统容易促进诈骗、非法赌博和禁售商品的广告。伦敦咨询公司 Propellerfish 警告称，Meta 自身的行为正在助长诈骗。Meta 去年聘请该咨询公司研究其在中国的业务为何产生如此多的禁售广告。

Propellerfish didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.

Propellerfish 没有对本报道的评论请求作出回应。

To place an ad on Facebook or Instagram, an advertiser must establish a user account, which requires little more than a name and a birthdate. But fake or stolen accounts are widespread, the Propellerfish report found, making it easy for fraudulent advertisers to disguise themselves.

要在 Facebook 或 Instagram 上投放广告，广告商必须建立一个用户账户，这只需要一个名字和出生日期。但 Propellerfish 报告发现，虚假或被盗账户普遍存在，使得欺诈广告商容易伪装自己。

Chinese technology firms also sell tools that obscure advertisers’ true identities and disguise fraudulent ads as innocuous, the report said. And artificial intelligence tools are used to generate fake documents, in case Meta attempts to verify the advertiser.

中国科技公司还销售工具，掩盖广告商的真实身份，并将欺诈广告伪装成无害的广告，报告称。而且，人工智能工具被用来生成虚假文件，以防 Meta 尝试验证广告商。

Compounding the phenomenon is an entire industry of “ad optimization specialists” that exploit weaknesses in Meta’s enforcement systems and create ads for scams and banned goods, the report said. The shady advertising campaigns these specialists managed were often funded by “informal” sources, including loan sharks. The report didn’t cite any of these sources by name.

这一现象的加剧是因为有一个完整的 “广告优化专家” 行业，利用 Meta 的执法系统的弱点，为诈骗和禁售商品创建广告，报告称。这些专家管理的阴暗广告活动通常由 “非正式” 来源资助，包括高利贷。报告没有具体列出这些来源的名称。

Because the harmful advertising doesn’t target Chinese citizens, the Propellerfish consultants concluded, China’s government generally turns a blind eye. “The Chinese government does not interfere when violations target overseas audiences,” the report noted. Crooked domestic advertisers, therefore, face “little or no risk.” Chinese authorities didn’t respond to questions about the Propellerfish analysis.

由于有害广告并不针对中国公民，Propellerfish 的顾问得出结论，中国政府通常对此视而不见。报告指出：“当违规行为针对海外受众时，中国政府不会干预。” 因此，国内不法广告商面临 “几乎没有风险”。中国当局没有对 Propellerfish 分析的相关问题作出回应。

Other social media platforms sell ads in China via similar networks of ad agency partners. But compared with its chief competitors for online advertising revenue, Meta has been more tolerant of illicit practices in China, Propellerfish found. “Enforcement is seen as inconsistent” by would-be abusers, the report said. TikTok was “stricter,” it continued, and Google required thorough identity checks.

其他社交媒体平台通过类似的广告代理合作伙伴网络在中国销售广告。但与其在线广告收入的主要竞争对手相比，Propellerfish 发现 Meta 对中国的非法行为更为宽容。报告称：“执法被视为不一致。” TikTok 则 “更严格”，而谷歌要求进行彻底的身份检查。

Google and TikTok didn’t respond to requests for comment.

谷歌和 TikTok 没有对评论请求作出回应。

Still, Meta considers its approach with Chinese advertisers to be acceptable, documents show.

尽管如此，Meta 认为其与中国广告商的做法是可以接受的，文件显示。

In one February 2025 document, it noted the “adversarial” nature of the Chinese market, where some advertisers are focused on quick profits, not steady business or brand-building. Unspecified “cultural factors,” the document added, destigmatize unethical business practices targeting foreigners.

在一份 2025 年 2 月的文件中，它提到中国市场的 “对抗性” 特征，一些广告商专注于快速获利，而不是稳定的业务或品牌建设。文件补充说，未具体说明的 “文化因素” 使针对外国人的不道德商业行为不再受到污名化。

In the same February document, Meta managers said the company would tolerate elevated levels of misconduct by Chinese advertisers on a permanent basis. Rather than seek “parity” between the quality of Chinese ads and the rest of the world – a target it appeared close to achieving during its brief battle against fraudsters last year – it would preserve the status quo, merely aiming to “maintain the % of global harm” from China.

在同一份 2 月的文件中，Meta 管理层表示，公司将长期容忍中国广告商的高水平不当行为。与其寻求中国广告与世界其他地区广告质量的 “平等”——在去年与诈骗者的短暂斗争中似乎接近实现——不如维持现状，仅仅旨在 “维持来自中国的全球伤害比例”。

SCAMMERS “ACCOMPLISH THEIR OBJECTIVES”

诈骗者 “实现他们的目标”

After China blocked its citizens from accessing major Western social media platforms in 2009, Meta spent years trying to get back into the country, home to a billion-plus potential users of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

在中国于 2009 年封锁其公民访问主要西方社交媒体平台后，Meta 花费了数年时间试图重新进入这个拥有超过十亿潜在 Facebook、Instagram 和 WhatsApp 用户的国家。

As part of a charm offensive, Zuckerberg visited China, studied Mandarin and met Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to news reports at the time. Meta and Chinese officials didn’t respond to questions about Zuckerberg’s outreach to Xi.

据当时的新闻报道，扎克伯格作为一项魅力攻势，访问了中国，学习了普通话，并会见了中国国家主席习近平。Meta 和中国官员没有回应关于扎克伯格与习近平接触的问题。

Less publicly, Meta built a secret system that would have given the Chinese government the ability to directly moderate Chinese users’ content if Meta won permission to reenter the market, according to

在不公开的情况下，Meta 建立了一个秘密系统，如果 Meta 获得重新进入市场的许可，该系统将使中国政府能够直接管理中国用户的内容，

a 2016 New York Times report

根据 2016 年《纽约时报》的报道，

and an internal company document from that period seen by Reuters.

以及路透社看到的那段时间的内部公司文件。

None of these efforts worked.

这些努力都没有成功。

China’s government, however, didn’t block mainland businesses from running ads that target social media users outside the country. That advertising eventually would help Chinese companies reach millions of buyers around the world.

然而，中国政府并没有阻止大陆企业投放针对境外社交媒体用户的广告。这些广告最终帮助中国公司接触到全球数百万买家。

China now represents 11% of Meta’s overall revenue.

中国现在占 Meta 整体收入的 11%。

Part of Meta’s success there has been driven by Shein and Temu, retail powerhouses that sell direct to consumers worldwide and that aren’t the source of Meta’s fraud problem, according to the internal documents. Those two Chinese companies, documents from July 2024 show, were Meta’s largest advertisers anywhere, spending on average a combined $17 million on Facebook and Instagram every day. Amazon, which spent $4.8 million daily, was third.

Meta 在中国的成功部分得益于 Shein 和 Temu，这两家零售巨头直接向全球消费者销售，并且不是 Meta 欺诈问题的源头，内部文件显示。这两家中国公司在 2024 年 7 月的文件中显示，是 Meta 在任何地方最大的广告客户，平均每天在 Facebook 和 Instagram 上花费 1700 万美元。亚马逊以每日 480 万美元的支出位居第三。

Shein, Temu and Amazon didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Shein、Temu 和亚马逊没有回应评论请求。

The fraud, the documents said, comes usually from small and medium-sized Chinese businesses recruited by Meta’s ad agency partners.

文件称，欺诈通常来自 Meta 广告代理合作伙伴招募的小型和中型中国企业。

In most of the world, advertisers on Facebook and Instagram buy ads through a business profile that is linked to advertisers’ accounts and related pages they control. But because businesses can’t readily access the platforms in China, Meta pays the 11 large Chinese ad agencies – known as resellers – to enlist advertisers and run ads for them on so-called “agency accounts.”

在世界大多数地方，Facebook 和 Instagram 上的广告客户通过与广告客户的账户和相关页面关联的商业资料购买广告。但由于企业无法在中国轻松访问这些平台，Meta 向 11 家大型中国广告代理商支付费用——这些代理商被称为转售商——以招募广告客户并在所谓的 “代理账户” 上为他们投放广告。

Meta pays a roughly 10% commission to agencies for ads purchased through these accounts and grants them special protections. For instance, under a system known as “whitelisting” or “mistake prevention,” Meta doesn’t immediately remove ads purchased via top-tier agencies when they’re flagged by automated systems for breaking Meta’s advertising rules, internal documents say. Such rules ban the advertising of scams, illegal goods and services, and certain other products such as sex toys.

Meta 向通过这些账户购买广告的代理商支付大约 10% 的佣金，并给予他们特殊保护。例如，在一种被称为 “白名单” 或 “错误预防” 的系统下，Meta 不会立即删除通过顶级代理商购买的广告，即使这些广告被自动系统标记为违反 Meta 的广告规则，内部文件称。这些规则禁止广告诈骗、非法商品和服务，以及某些其他产品，如性玩具。

Instead, suspect ads remain active as they undergo a secondary review by a human. If Meta’s staffers are busy, that might take days – or never happen at all. And in the meantime, Meta continues to show the ads.

相反，可疑广告在接受人工二次审核时仍然保持活跃。如果 Meta 的工作人员忙，这可能需要几天时间——或者根本不会发生。在此期间，Meta 继续展示这些广告。

“Unfortunately the added time for secondary review is adequate for scammers to accomplish their objectives by gaining massive impressions,” one document says.

“不幸的是，二次审核所需的额外时间足以让诈骗者实现他们的目标，获得大量曝光，” 一份文件称。

Some of Meta’s Chinese partners openly advertise their ability to shield clients from Meta enforcement. “80% lower chance of suspension than other regular agents,” promises the website of Yinolink, one of Meta’s official Chinese partners.

一些 Meta 的中国合作伙伴公开宣传他们能够保护客户免受 Meta 执法的能力。“比其他普通代理商低 80% 的暂停机会，” Meta 的官方中国合作伙伴之一 Yinolink 的网站承诺。

Yinolink didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Yinolink 没有回应评论请求。

Meta also allows its Chinese partners to share their accounts with smaller ad agencies, known to the company as “second-tier” resellers. The practice gives Meta even less knowledge of the parties with whom it is doing business, internal documents show, be it the lower-level ad agencies or the clients buying the ads.

Meta 还允许其中国合作伙伴与较小的广告代理商共享他们的账户，这些代理商在公司内部被称为 “二级” 转售商。这一做法使 Meta 对其商业往来的各方知之甚少，内部文件显示，无论是较低级别的广告代理商还是购买广告的客户。

As such, the system is impossible for Meta to closely police, Propellerfish’s analysis of the Chinese market determined. “Purchasing accounts is trivially easy,” it said.

因此，Propellerfish 对中国市场的分析认为，该系统对 Meta 来说几乎不可能进行严格监管。“购买账户非常简单，” 它表示。

“Violation or not,” one ad optimization specialist told a Propellerfish consultant, “it doesn’t make much difference for us.” The report didn’t identify the specialist or the consultant, who was posing on behalf of Propellerfish as a mystery shopper.

“违规与否，” 一位广告优化专家告诉 Propellerfish 的顾问，“对我们来说并没有太大区别。” 报告没有透露专家或顾问的身份，顾问以神秘购物者的身份代表 Propellerfish 进行咨询。

To determine how scam ads can be purchased on Facebook or Instagram using a Chinese agency, a U.S.-based Reuters reporter placed ads through intermediaries working with Meta’s top Chinese partners. The intermediaries were second-tier agencies, some of whom Meta also certified as “Badged Partners,” described in an official directory on its website as “trusted experts.” Some of these lower-level partners openly boasted about their ability to run banned ads on Meta’s platforms.

为了确定如何通过中国代理购买 Facebook 或 Instagram 上的诈骗广告，一名驻美国的路透社记者通过与 Meta 的顶级中国合作伙伴合作的中介投放广告。这些中介是二级代理商，其中一些也被 Meta 认证为 “Badged Partners”，在其官方网站的官方目录中被描述为 “可信赖的专家”。一些这些低级别的合作伙伴公开夸耀他们能够在 Meta 的平台上投放被禁止的广告。

Two of the agencies Reuters placed ads with were based outside China. In text chats, the reporter openly stated his interest in running banned ads at the time of purchase and received no resistance from the resellers. It cost $30 or less – paid via cryptocurrency – to set up each account. (See related story on

路透社投放广告的两家代理商位于中国以外。在文本聊天中，记者在购买时公开表示他有兴趣投放被禁止的广告，并没有受到转售商的抵制。设置每个账户的费用为 30 美元或更少——通过加密货币支付。（请参见相关故事，

how we did this

我们是如何做到的

。）

The ad accounts controlled by these lower-level ad agencies came from some of Meta’s leading Chinese partners, including GatherOne and Cheetah Mobile. Reuters then used the subleased accounts to place ads touting investments with unrealistic rates of return – a test of Meta’s policies against get-rich-quick schemes. The ads ran unimpeded and prompted interest from dozens of Facebook users. Reuters informed the users the ads had been a journalistic test.

这些低级别广告代理商控制的广告账户来自 Meta 的一些主要中国合作伙伴，包括 GatherOne 和 Cheetah Mobile。路透社随后使用这些转租的账户投放宣传不切实际回报率的投资广告——这是对 Meta 针对快速致富计划政策的测试。这些广告毫无阻碍地运行，并引起了数十名 Facebook 用户的兴趣。路透社告知用户这些广告是一次新闻测试。

Cheetah Mobile and GatherOne didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Cheetah Mobile 和 GatherOne 没有回应评论请求。

Shortly before publication of this report, Meta deleted its Badged Partner directory from its website. “We’re reviewing the program,” Stone said, adding that the company would investigate how official Chinese agency accounts ended up in the hands of non-Chinese companies.

在本报告发布前不久，Meta 从其网站上删除了 Badged Partner 目录。“我们正在审查该项目，” Stone 说，并补充说公司将调查官方中国代理账户如何落入非中国公司之手。

“WE ARE SEEING HARM”

“我们正在看到伤害。”

Between 2022 and 2024, Meta’s Chinese ad revenue more than doubled, from $7.4 billion to $18.4 billion, according to the company’s public financial statements. As the business soared, it grew increasingly apparent inside the company that fraudulent practices were widespread in China, the internal documents show.

根据公司的公开财务报表，从 2022 年到 2024 年，Meta 在中国的广告收入翻了一番，从 74 亿美元增至 184 亿美元。随着业务的迅猛增长，内部文件显示，公司内部越来越明显地意识到中国存在广泛的欺诈行为。

In 2023, as part of an earlier effort to address fraud, Meta stopped verifying new Chinese ad agency partners because of the “high harm” these intermediaries were causing, one document says. But Meta lifted the moratorium after its 2024 “pivot” in order to “unlock” revenue.

2023 年，作为早期应对欺诈的努力的一部分，Meta 停止了对新的中国广告代理合作伙伴的验证，因为这些中介造成了 “高危害”，一份文件显示。但 Meta 在 2024 年 “转型” 后解除了一项禁令，以 “解锁” 收入。

By late 2024, lower-tier Chinese ad agencies were once again gaining access to verified accounts on Meta’s platforms. Of the annualized $240 million in advertising from newly verified resellers that year, half violated Meta’s safety rules, Meta determined. “We are seeing harm from these newly verified agencies,” the document says.

到 2024 年底，低层次的中国广告代理再次获得了 Meta 平台上经过验证的账户的访问权限。Meta 确定，在当年新验证的转售商中，年化广告收入为 2.4 亿美元，其中一半违反了 Meta 的安全规则。“我们看到这些新验证的代理造成了伤害，” 文件中写道。

Staffers responded by creating a dashboard to track the newly verified partners and started holding “weekly monitoring sessions to review and address problematic agencies.” Due to the high rates of misconduct, Stone said, Meta reimposed its moratorium on verifying new Chinese agency partners in late 2024.

员工们通过创建一个仪表板来跟踪新验证的合作伙伴，并开始举行 “每周监控会议，以审查和解决问题代理”。由于不当行为的高发率，Stone 表示，Meta 在 2024 年底重新实施了对新中国代理合作伙伴的验证禁令。

One top Chinese advertiser illustrates the holes in Meta’s vetting process.

一位顶级中国广告商展示了 Meta 审核流程中的漏洞。

Last year, according to one document, Meta found that more than half the ads run by an advertiser called Beijing Tengze Technology Co Ltd broke Meta’s rules against deceptive practices. The documents don’t detail the products or services that Beijing Tengze was advertising. But the company was on an internal list of Meta’s top 200 advertisers worldwide, in the same league as brands such as American Express, BMW and Chanel.

根据一份文件，去年 Meta 发现一家名为北京腾泽科技有限公司的广告商所投放的广告中，有超过一半违反了 Meta 关于欺骗性行为的规则。文件没有详细说明北京腾泽所宣传的产品或服务。但该公司在 Meta 全球前 200 大广告商的内部名单中，与美国运通、宝马和香奈儿等品牌同列。

Still, Meta didn’t stop doing business with Beijing Tengze, internal documents show. Instead, Meta started charging the company more to advertise. The measure followed a Meta policy that seeks to discourage fraudsters by making them pay a “penalty.”

尽管如此，内部文件显示，Meta 并没有停止与北京腾泽的业务往来。相反，Meta 开始向该公司收取更高的广告费用。这一措施遵循了 Meta 的一项政策，旨在通过让欺诈者支付 “罚款” 来打击欺诈行为。

Meta told Reuters it later cut ties with Beijing Tengze. It didn’t specify when. Chinese business records show the company shut down early this year. A visit by the news agency to what had been its listed address led to a residential street in a mountain town nearly two hours from Beijing. The address, given as the headquarters of one of Meta’s top advertisers, turned out not to exist.

Meta 告诉路透社，后来与北京腾泽断绝了关系，但没有具体说明时间。中国商业记录显示，该公司在今年年初关闭。新闻机构对其登记地址的访问发现，那里是一条位于距离北京近两小时的山区的住宅街。作为 Meta 顶级广告商之一的总部地址，结果发现并不存在。

Business records show the majority owner of Beijing Tengze was a man named Lin Zedun. Lin also controls several other companies, including Shenzhen Fugaoda Technology Co Ltd, that state they advertise on Facebook and Instagram.

商业记录显示，北京腾泽的主要股东是一名叫林泽敦的男子。林还控制着几家公司，包括深圳富高达科技有限公司，该公司声称在 Facebook 和 Instagram 上做广告。

Shenzhen Fugaoda is listed as an active business in Chinese registry records. But a visit by Reuters to the official address of that company’s headquarters in Shenzhen, in southeast China, led to an empty office with trash on the floor. The building’s superintendent told Reuters the company, after missing rent payments, abruptly vacated the office in the spring of 2024.

深圳富高达在中国注册记录中被列为活跃企业。但路透社对该公司在中国东南部深圳的官方总部地址的访问发现，那里是一间空荡荡的办公室，地上满是垃圾。大楼的管理员告诉路透社，该公司在 2024 年春季因未支付租金而突然搬离了办公室。

Reuters couldn’t determine where the company went. Lin, the company owner, didn’t respond to a request by email for comment.

路透社无法确定该公司去了哪里。公司所有者林没有回复电子邮件请求评论。

Several months after leaving its headquarters, Shenzhen Fuguoda was again active, posting ads on a Chinese job site to hire specialists in social media advertising and e-commerce. “Priority will be given to those with experience in distributing small black goods in Europe and America,” the ad said, using common Mandarin slang for black-market products.

在离开总部几个月后，深圳富高达再次活跃，在一个中国招聘网站上发布广告，招聘社交媒体广告和电子商务的专家。“优先考虑有在欧洲和美国分销小黑货经验的人，” 广告中写道，使用了普通话中对黑市产品的常见俚语。

Early this year, as part of its effort to maintain the level of fraud it had deemed tolerable, Meta began adjusting the commissions it paid to Chinese ad agencies, a document states. The new payments are meant to account for the quality of ads the agencies place: If they bring too many scams or false advertisers, Meta will pay them less.

今年年初，作为维持其认为可容忍的欺诈水平的一部分，Meta 开始调整对中国广告代理的佣金，一份文件显示。这些新支付旨在考虑代理投放广告的质量：如果他们带来太多的诈骗或虚假广告，Meta 将支付更少。

The change doesn’t appear to have altered many agencies’ tactics.

这一变化似乎并没有改变许多代理的策略。

In May, for example, Meta staffers sampled Chinese ads amid a spike in violations on the platform, one document shows. They found that a collection of 800 advertising accounts in the previous month alone had generated $28 million in ads that violated Meta’s rules.

例如，文件显示，在 5 月份，Meta 员工在平台上违规行为激增的情况下抽样了中国广告。他们发现，仅在前一个月，就有 800 个广告账户产生了 2800 万美元的违规广告。

The samples, the May 2025 document states, included scams, “deceptive business practices,” and ads that violated Meta’s prohibitions against marketing for illegal online casinos, sexual content, weapons and animal abuse.

样本中，2025 年 5 月的文件指出，包括诈骗、“欺骗性商业行为”，以及违反 Meta 禁止的非法在线赌场、性内容、武器和虐待动物的广告。

More than 75% of the spending came from accounts enjoying Meta’s partner protections, the document shows. In response to that finding, one staffer asked colleagues if Meta intended to punish the big-spending Chinese advertising partners who controlled the accounts.

超过 75% 的支出来自享有 Meta 合作伙伴保护的账户，文件显示。对此发现，一名员工询问同事，Meta 是否打算惩罚控制这些账户的大额支出中国广告合作伙伴。

No, another said, because “the revenue impact is too high.” Instead, Meta’s enforcement team proposed shutting down a small portion of the accounts that human reviews had found to be overwhelmingly running banned ads.

另一名员工表示不，因为 “收入影响太大”。相反，Meta 的执法团队提议关闭一小部分人类审核发现主要投放禁用广告的账户。

Those accounts, according to the document, represented just $2.8 million of the harmful ads Meta was receiving from the accounts each month. Still, before shutting the accounts down, the safety staffers wanted to confirm that colleagues focusing on ad growth wouldn’t object, “given the revenue impact.”

根据文件，这些账户每月仅占 Meta 从这些账户收到的有害广告的 280 万美元。尽管如此，在关闭账户之前，安全工作人员希望确认专注于广告增长的同事不会反对，“考虑到收入影响”。

The Meta spokesperson told Reuters the specific numbers cited in the document weren’t final and that enforcement resulted in many dozens of removed accounts. He didn’t provide new figures.

Meta 发言人告诉路透社，文件中引用的具体数字并非最终数字，执法导致许多账户被移除。他没有提供新的数字。

The closure of those accounts could help Meta address the current spike in fraud and banned ads, the document said, but it wasn’t likely to change any behavior long-term. Advertisers, it noted, could soon reroute their ads through accounts that Meta hadn’t shut down.

关闭这些账户可能有助于 Meta 应对当前的欺诈和禁用广告激增，文件中表示，但不太可能长期改变任何行为。广告商指出，他们可能很快会通过 Meta 尚未关闭的账户重新投放广告。

“It’s likely the revenue will return,” the document concluded.

“收入可能会恢复，” 文件总结道。

Meta’s “trusted experts” helped me run scam ads on Facebook and Instagram here

Meta 的 “可信专家” 帮助我在 Facebook 和 Instagram 上投放诈骗广告这里

(Editing by Steve Stecklow and Paulo Prada.)

（编辑：Steve Stecklow 和 Paulo Prada。）

特别报道——Meta 为了保护数十亿美元的收入而容忍来自中国的猖獗广告欺诈