For technology giants such as Meta Platforms, the argument about the inability to fully monitor millions of adverts has been an effective shield against regulators over the years. However, a recent speech by Tim Miller, executive director of the UK Gambling Commission, suggests that patience for the ‘react after the fact’ model is running out in Europe. Miller, speaking at ICE Barcelona, made it clear: the owner of Facebook and Instagram not only knows about illegal casino advertising, but is deliberately turning a blind eye to it as long as the money is flowing broadly.
Miller’s accusations strike at a sensitive point in Meta’s business model – the effectiveness of its own verification tools. The regulator highlighted a paradox: the publicly available Meta Advertising Library (Ad Library) effortlessly reveals promotions from gambling operators who boast of bypassing the GamStop system. This is the UK’s self-exclusion mechanism designed to protect addicts. Since officials are able to find these adverts using simple keywords, Meta’s claim of ignorance becomes, according to Miller, “simply false”.
From a business perspective, the situation casts a shadow over Big Tech’s compliance procedures. Miller described the ad library as a ‘window to criminality’, suggesting that the Met has the technical capability to block such content immediately, but chooses not to do so. It’s an indictment of a cynical calculation: reputational risk is included in the cost of revenue until external pressure becomes too strong.
For Meta’s advertisers and business partners, this is a wake-up call. The Gambling Commission has admitted that progress to date in talks with the giant has been “very limited”. This could herald an impending tightening of regulation that will force platforms to preemptively censor content under threat of gigantic financial penalties. If regulators find platforms complicit in promoting the grey market, the era of passive moderation will be over. As Miller concluded, Meta’s current attitude leaves the impression that the company is content to take money from scammers until someone loudly protests.
