[medalblue]

"First, they identified the top keywords and celebrity names that Japanese Ad Library users employed to find the fraud ads. Then they ran identical searches repeatedly, deleting ads that appeared fraudulent from the library and Meta’s platforms."

That doesn't sound like cloaking. They really are deleting the ads. They're just concentrating on the ads that the regulators are most likely to see based on what they usually search for.

[paddw]

> The scrubbing, Meta teams explained in documents regarding their efforts to reduce scam discoverability, sought to make problematic content “not findable” for “regulators, investigators and journalists.”

This seems to be the "smoking gun"... but it's unclear from the article what the source or context of the quotations are.

[billyp-rva]

> “not findable” for “regulators, investigators and journalists.”

> but it's unclear from the article what the source or context of the quotations are.

Good point, this quote could just be painting their actions in the poorest possible light.

[araes]

Needs verification on the normal user side of the experience. Like noted, unclear whether the ads are completely deleted, or just deleted from what regulators would return in search results.

Later part makes it sounds like the ads were at least deleted from the Japanese / Taiwan results areas completely, and then just redistributed to other geographic areas.

  "If an unverified advertiser is blocked from showing ads in Taiwan, for example, Meta will show those ads more frequently to users elsewhere, creating a whack-a-mole dynamic in which scam ads prohibited in one jurisdiction pop up in another."

However, still difficult to tell from the story what the experience of "normal" Japanese / Taiwan users is relative to what regulators view.

Notably, from a different article about fake accounts, and how much they cost, Japan's regulation seems to be working (at least somewhat). [1] Fake Accounts for Facebook Available (US, 157,401, @$0.13/account; Japan, 16, @$3.00/account, Dec 31st, 2025 data)

[1] https://cotsi.org/platforms?view=map&platform=fb

[quikoa]

Not quite. The ads themselves aren't deleted but only not displayed for a subset of keywords. If the ads were deleted no keyword would be able to show these.

[lmz]

If there are multiple ads (and why would there not be multiple ads?), deleting the one advertised using keyword X does nothing to the one advertised using keyword Y.