Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show (reuters.com)

But the company only bans advertisers if its automated systems predict the marketers are at least 95% certain to be committing fraud, the documents show. If the company is less certain – but still believes the advertiser is a likely scammer – Meta charges higher ad rates as a penalty, according to the documents.

Facebook’s system is a scam. First, the “95% certain” threshold seems ridiculously low, especially considering Meta’s investment in AI. The standard should be two nines (99%) with a stated goal of getting to three, five, or even seven nines. If ad-supported platform companies won’t impose this upon themselves, Congress should. Unfortunately, neither is likely to happen any time soon.

Second, it seems the ‘punishment’ for the sneakiest fraudsters — those that get past the 95% threshold but still seem likely to be a scammer — would simply force those folks to focus their efforts on higher dollar and/or volume scams that will justify paying the higher ad rates. Oh, and Facebook collects higher revenue from these folks, too.

What a joke.

MLB pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz charged with taking bribes to rig pitches for bettors (apnews.com)

Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, both of whom pitched for the Cleveland Guardians, have been on non-disciplinary paid leave since July while Major League Baseball investigated unusually high in-game betting activity when they pitched.

Now that the season’s over, MLB can deal with a couple loose ends.

What a disgrace.