Temu Halts $1 Billion Fake Influencer Ad Network on Meta After Exposure
Temu largely stopped funding a network of fake influencer accounts on Meta's platforms after an investigation exposed the operation, which spent nearly $1 billion on partnership ads targeting users in the U.K. and 27 EU countries.
Temu has largely halted funding for a sprawling network of fake influencer accounts on Meta's platforms after the operation was exposed, according to research from Online Risk Labs, a Czech-based social media research group. The Chinese e-commerce giant had spent nearly $1 billion on partnership ads with various influencers and creators on Instagram and Facebook, targeting users in the United Kingdom and 27 European Union countries.
ORL examined a sample period of Temu's advertising activity over 16 months ending in April 2026. The group found that around 73 of the 100 influencers whose pages featured the most Temu ads were probably fake. These accounts often had nonsensical names, were based in China, Russia, Bangladesh, or Iran, and some frequently changed names — all symptoms of inauthentic activity, according to ORL. The 100 accounts participated in more than 1.4 million partnership ads, achieving a cumulative reach of almost 17 billion pairs of eyeballs.
Meta's partnership ad program allows influencers to create content promoting a brand, tagging the company in each post. If the company likes the content, it can pay to boost it just like a paid ad, and creators get a cut of the budget. Meta disclosed earlier this year that partnership ads were on course for a $10 billion annual run rate across Facebook and Instagram.
Fortune's story on the fake account network ran on August 31. At that time, Temu was running 4,900 separate partnership campaigns a day on the network. By September 4, 90 accounts suddenly featured zero advertising from Temu. Of the top 100 accounts, 54 stopped using partnership ads almost immediately after August 31. Temu's entire network of creators involves 12,000 or more accounts, many of which are legitimate. Overall, the number of partnership ads run by Temu almost halved after the story.
The biggest account, «Ya Lilly,» had 183,000 followers on her «@findgadgetswithme» Instagram account and a further 129,000 followers on Facebook, where she went by the name «Must good.» Ya Lilly's content ran in 278,000 Temu ad campaigns in ORL's study period — about 225 campaigns per day. Her account is almost certainly fake. By September 4, only five ads from Ya Lilly appeared on Meta's platforms, probably as remnants from previously scheduled ad buys. Ya Lilly previously posted multiple times per day, but stopped posting entirely on September 7.
Neither Temu nor Meta responded to messages requesting comment. «When you look at their Instagram accounts, you can see that they have not published any new posts or reels since two weeks or so. These are predominantly the accounts based in Russia, with some also based in the United States or China,» ORL manager Vendula Prokůpková told Fortune. «We also noticed that most of the Instagram accounts of these 'creators' no longer display information about the country the account is based in.»
Temu's ad budget appears to have been maintained for legitimate creators. «Across all of its pages, weekly ads went from 166,523 in the week of 17 August to 147,013 in the week of 7 September,» ORL said in a follow-up to its original study. «Partnership ads over the same weeks went from 115,114 to 64,008.»
Partnership ads in Ireland, Cyprus, Austria, Denmark, Latvia, and Slovenia ceased almost entirely, ORL said. It is not clear why. The laws against misleading advertising in those jurisdictions are very strict, however. In Ireland, Denmark, Cyprus, and Austria, penalties can include criminal conviction and imprisonment. In the others, consumers have the right to sue companies that publish misleading ads, and cases can result in companies being forced to pay a percentage of their revenues.
The findings raise questions about the integrity of Meta's partnership ad program, which has become a significant revenue stream for the social media giant. The program's scale — with a $10 billion annual run rate — makes it a tempting target for bad actors seeking to exploit the system. Temu's rapid retreat from the fake accounts suggests the company moved quickly to distance itself from the operation once it was publicly exposed.
The episode also highlights the challenges platforms face in policing influencer marketing, particularly when accounts are based in multiple countries and can easily change their identities. For now, Temu appears to have cut ties with the most egregious offenders, but the broader questions about ad verification and platform accountability remain unresolved.
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