Meta allows ads crowdfunding for IDF drones, consumer watchdog finds

The Guardian

14 hours ago

Meta is hosting ads on Facebook, Instagram and Threads from pro-Israel entities that are raising money for military equipment including drones and tactical gear for Israeli Defense Force battalions, seemingly a violation of the company's stated advertising policies, new research shows.
'We are the sniper team of Unit Shaked, stationed in Gaza, and we urgently need shooting tripods to complete our mission in Jabalia,' one ad on Facebook read, first published on 11 June and still active on 17 July.
These paid ads were first discovered and flagged to Meta by global consumer watchdog, Ekō, which identified at least 117 ads published since March 2025 that explicitly sought donations for military equipment for the IDF. It is the second time the organization has reported ads by the same publishers to Meta. In a previous investigation from December 2024, Ekō flagged 98 ads to Meta, prompting the tech giant to take many of them down. However, the company has largely allowed the publishers to start new campaigns with identical ads since then. The IDF itself is not running the fundraising calls.
'This shows that Meta will literally take money from anybody,' said Ekō campaigner Maen Hammad. 'So little of the checks and balances the platform ought to be doing actually takes place and if it does, they'll do it after the fact.'
Meta said it reviewed and removed the ads for violating company policy after the Guardian and Ekō reached out for comment, according to Ryan Daniels, a spokesperson for the social media firm. Any ads about social issues, elections or politics are required to go through an authorization process and include a disclaimer that discloses who is paying for the ad, the company said. These ads did not.
These ads garnered at least 76,000 impressions – a term that indicates the number of times an ad is shown to a user – in the EU and UK alone, according to Ekō. The group was unable to determine the number of impressions in the US.
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At least 97 ads within the more recent crop, including many that remain active, are seeking donations to fund specific models of civilian drones. A new investigation from +972 magazine reveals these types of drones have allegedly been used by Israeli combat units to drop grenades on Palestinians, many who were unarmed. These quadcopters are primarily used for photography and can be purchased on Amazon, but IDF units are retrofitting the machines with grenades, primarily because they are orders of magnitude cheaper than military-grade drones, according to several IDF soldiers who spoke to +972 anonymously.
'Most of our drones are broken and falling apart—and we don't have any replacements,' another ad reads. 'Donate now—every second counts, every drone saves lives.'
While it's unclear if these combat units used funds received from these particular ads to purchase drones, soldiers told +972 they did receive cheap drones, manufactured by a Chinese firm called Autel, through donations and fundraisers as well as Facebook groups.
Fundraising ads from one of the publishers Ekō identified, Vaad Hatzedaka, links to a donation page that lists the variety of equipment the organization is fundraising for, including two Autel drones. Vaad Hatzedaka, a non-profit, has raised more than $250,000 of its $300,000 goal to provide these drones and other aid to various IDF units, according to the donation page. The second publisher, Mayer Malik, a singer-songwriter based in Israel, has published ads linking to a landing page that includes sponsorship opportunities for various pieces of tactical equipment, among them an Autel thermal drone. Malik has raised more than $2.2m in total donations for the IDF.
Meta's ad policy prohibits most attempts to donate, gift, buy, sell or transfer 'firearms, firearm parts, ammunition, explosives, or lethal enhancements' with some exceptions. While Meta has taken down this recent crop of ads as well as some of the ads fundraising for military equipment Ekō previously flagged, the company did so because the content lacked a disclaimer required for ads around social issues, elections or politics, according to disclosures included in the Meta ad library.
The ads may also violate certain terms of the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), according to Ekō. Under the DSA, platforms like Meta are required to take down content that violate national or EU law. In France and the UK, laws limit whether and how charities can fundraise for foreign militaries. In the UK, for instance, in January 2025, the Charity Commission issued an official warning to a London charity that was raising funds for an IDF soldier and said it was 'not lawful, or acceptable'.