Not to distract from Meta but I’m surprised Google doesn’t also get heat for this. A number of phishing sites win >30% of the auction on my company’s brand keywords and I see it on many others as well, especially in CPG and e-commerce. I’ve yet to have any luck getting Google to ban the advertisers.
It's insane work when you just search "Coinbase" and literally the first or sponsored results are not Coinbase but scam sites. I've seen this first-hand in Google. Obviously SEO and DA isn't on their side so it has to just be like pay enough and you can push whatever you want.
My wife got hit by this. Click an ad for to a 100% fake site with deep discounts, put in her credit card, order never went through. I checked the advertiser and it was somewhere in China. A few days later, her CC was used to buy some gift cards online. At least it was a good learning experience.
Thanks to the platforms solving for that side of things, the niches happen within the larger platforms now, like “health insta,” “cryptotwitter,” “yogatok.”
I really do miss the obscure forums of the early 2000s though. The more intimate connections with an anon don’t happen as often (anecdotally, for me) in these subgroups of the big networks.
Unfortunately, these channels always have ulterior motives because of the social network's ability to create stars, and have them cash in via influencer deals or other benefits of online fame.
