What is important when it comes to regulators is not whether you fail to comply or not. It is whether you take your responsibility to comply seriously e.g. timely responses to information requests, continuous process improvement etc.
I reported it (like others in this thread), but facebook said it didn't break any rules. I requested another review, and they said the same thing, with no way for me to make any comments or replies.
Perhaps they will remove certain ads if it's instantly obvious that it is illegal, but overall they're pretty terrible at moderation.
Meta being bad at following their policies is a different problem than a platform whose policies say they won’t stop abuse. You can argue which problem is worse, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that the world should treat the two problems the same.
For the VIA thing, I have legitimately earned VIA Preference Points for surveys [0] and have heard of them being offered as survey rewards at my alma mater of Queen’s University (where VIA use is pretty heavy).
Why are you changing the focus to regulators and not meta moderation which is what you claimed that is done? (and many proved in this thread that no they don't remove content that breaks local laws).
I regularly report scam ads as well as obvious catfishing friend requests from obviously fake accounts whose only post is a sketchy URL to some "sex chat". Almost all of the reports are rejected.
It seems obvious to me that Meta's moderation is mostly about pretending just enough for regulators to go away, and no more. Hell, Meta probably indirectly makes money from these scams by targeting more scams at the people who fall for them, at a premium. Meta makes money, scammers make money, regulators are content. It's a win-win-win.
What is important when it comes to regulators is not whether you fail to comply or not. It is whether you take your responsibility to comply seriously e.g. timely responses to information requests, continuous process improvement etc.