Scam Ads Are Flooding Social Media. These Former Meta Staffers Have a Plan

Rob Leathern and Rob Goldman, who both worked at Meta, are launching a new nonprofit that aims to bring transparency to an increasingly opaque, scam-filled social media ecosystem.

When billionaire Dutch TV producer John de Mol sued Facebook in 2019 over its alleged failure to stop scammers from using his image in deceptive ads, the social media company sent Rob Leathern to Amsterdam to meet with Del Mol’s team and to speak with the media.

“The people who push these kinds of ads are persistent, they are well funded, and they are constantly evolving their deceptive tactics to get around our systems,” Leathern told Reuters at the time.

During his four years at the company now known as Meta, Leathern was in many ways the public face of its effort to fight scam ads. He led the business integrity unit tasked with preventing scammers and other bad actors from ...