My father-in-law clicked an ad on Fb that advertised a set of Ryobi tools for way less than they are worth. He bought 2 at $200 a piece. It was clearly a scam. He ended up getting his money back. He stayed on Facebook all the way through his passing.
I remember thinking: Facebook is fine with people getting scammed and he had no problem staying on that platform. Why is Facebook letting that happen? If Fb is ok with it, why would you want to be on that platform?
It’s all fucked.
A smaller amount but yes, my relative with diabetes who uses FB did get scammed by an ad for a smartwatch monitoring sugar levels without an implant. Ads like these appear all the time in the feed, and political disinformation, and links to ragebait from Threads. To many people these inclusions don’t differ much visually from posts from their friends, so they don’t understand they’re not getting recommendations from equals, from whom they trust, but from a machine trying to exploit them.
Facebook has an abusive relationship model… Despite all the best things it does to you, it may have 1 or 2 features people feel they can’t live without and creates a sense of “I hate it and I know I should break up with it, but my family and friends groups…”
only ‘tens of millions’?