A Facebook ad promoting “wedding day essentials” and “best priced suits” has sparked backlash after being paired with a harrowing video recounting the trafficking of a 13-year-old girl.
The video, posted by the Facebook page Behind Closed Doors, which claims to “unmask hidden bullying, harassment and crimes”, was part four of a 20+ video series exposing the girl’s abuse.
A screenshot of the ad juxtaposed with the video, shared to LinkedIn by Private Media CEO Will Hayward, has reignited longstanding concerns over Meta’s algorithmic ad placements and the company’s commitment to brand safety.
“No other media company would get away with running this ad against this content,” Hayward wrote. “They have the tools to fix it; they just don’t care.”
The reaction from the industry was swift and damning. “Another day, another Meta outrage – I don’t understand why CMOs keep supporting this shit,” said Justin Randles, director of Mercury Talent.
“That’s f***ing wild,” added Ben Skelsey, ANZ’s head of marketing.
Nathan Jackson from Taboola said he’s “always been pro the ‘open web’ and quality publishers because the social platforms don’t seem to care,” while Karel Smeets, founder of Stealthmode Community, noted it’s a common problem with thematic programmatic ad buying.
“The last one I remember screenshotting is a cleaning detergent ad next to a news story of a woman who was attacked with an acidic cleaning detergent,” Smeets said.
Kristina Knut from Supermetric put it bluntly: “Facebook is broken beyond belief, but as long as they can cash in on running ads… they don’t care.”
A spokesperson for Meta said that it has made “significant investments to develop industry leading brand safety and suitability tools, including inventory filters, topic exclusion lists, content type exclusions, and third-party block lists”.
“These tools give advertisers control over where their ads appear in Feed and Reels. Additionally, our policies ensure that content that violates our community standards isn’t eligible for ad adjacency.
“In this particular example, it’s unfortunate this ad content appeared next to organic content on a very important and serious subject, however it is a rare occurrence across the millions of ads and organic content served in people’s Feed daily”.
The controversy comes just months after Meta dismantled its independent fact-checking program, replacing it with a “community notes” system reminiscent of X. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the move aimed to reduce censorship, claiming fact-checking had become “too politically biased and destroyed more trust than it created.”
Instead, the platform will focus on the highest priority violating content leaving user to police less harmful content across Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp.
It is worth noting that these changes will not impact Australia at this time.
Meta has also pledged to loosen its content filters and rewrite its moderation policies, particularly around topics like gender and immigration, which Zuckerberg claims “are out of touch with mainstream discourse.” He admitted this would result in platforms catching “a lot less bad stuff.”
Adding further fuel to the fire, Zuckerberg declared Meta would work with President Donald Trump to push back against global governments cracking down on online content, just days before Trump’s second inauguration and Meta’s $US1 million contribution to his event.
Meta’s move sits in stark contrast to Australia’s push for greater online accountability. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said misinformation can harm health, wellbeing, and social cohesion, emphasising the government’s ongoing support for trusted, fact-checked sources like the ABC, SBS and AAP.
Despite the furore, Meta’s financial results and vision for AI-driven advertising show no signs of slowing. First quarter revenues hit $41.4 billion, up 16 per cent year-on-year, while net income surged 35 per cent. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said AI is redefining advertising into “an agent that delivers measurable business results at scale.”
Yet, for many in the industry, the juxtaposition of trafficking stories with suit ads signals a darker side of automated adtech, one where engagement and optimisation outweigh ethics and responsibility.
As Kristina Knut said plainly: “Fixing it would mean less ad revenue.” And that, it seems, remains the ultimate algorithm Meta has no interest in rewriting.
