Entertainment
Meta accused of profiting from scam ads in class-action lawsuit
This week, a class-action lawsuit was filed in Washington, D.C. against Meta, alleging that the company deceived Facebook users about scam advertisements and profited from it.
Tycko and Zavareei LLP and Tech Justice Law filed the complaint on April 21 under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act on behalf of the Consumer Federation of America and Washington, D.C. Facebook users. The complaint states that while Meta publicly claims to fight scams, internal documents (published by Reuters in Dec. 2025) show it’s making billions off of them.
The documents show that in 2024, Meta projected that around 10 percent of its revenue — around $16 billion — would come from advertising scam and banned products. Users are apparently exposed to 15 billion “high-risk” scam ads each day, per the documents. Meta apparently charged these high-risk advertisers more while rejecting 96 percent of valid user fraud reports.
Mashable Light Speed
“Meta has, as a matter of company policy, deliberately profited from rampant, inexcusable harm to users on its platforms,” attorney and managing director at Tech Justice Law, Sarah Kay Wiley, stated in a press release. “Meta told its users it was fighting fraud. Internally, it was charging scammers a premium for access to those same users. That is not a failure of enforcement, that is a business model built on predatory deception.”
A Meta spokesperson told Mashable, “These allegations misrepresent the reality of our work and we will fight them.”
“We aggressively combat scams across our platforms to protect people and businesses — last year alone, we removed over 159 million scam ads, 92 percent of which we took down before anyone reported them, and took down 10.9 million accounts on Facebook and Instagram associated with criminal scam centers. We fight scams because they are bad for business — people don’t want them, advertisers don’t want them, and we don’t want them either,” the spokesperson continued.
The complaint comes weeks after Meta announced new tools to fight scams on its platforms like Facebook and Instagram, including working with law enforcement. In recent years, Meta has reportedly rejected ads from legitimate businesses, like the sex toy shop Unbound (until they created fake ads targeted at men) and healthcare platform Daye.
Entertainment
Hurdle hints and answers for April 29, 2026
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it’ll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Nominate your favorite creators today
If you find yourself stuck at any step of today’s Hurdle, don’t worry! We have you covered.
Hurdle Word 1 hint
To admire.
Hurdle Word 1 answer
ADORE
Mashable Top Stories
Hurdle Word 2 hint
Heavy.
Hurdle Word 2 Answer
HEFTY
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Nominate your favorite creators today
Hurdle Word 3 hint
Two-legged.
Hurdle Word 3 answer
BIPED
Hurdle Word 4 hint
Hefty.
Hurdle Word 4 answer
HEAVY
Final Hurdle hint
Pointy.
Hurdle Word 5 answer
SHARP
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Entertainment
Moon phase today: What the Moon will look like on April 29
It may appear full, but the Moon isn’t actually at 100% illumination yet. In fact, we’re still a couple of days away. But it’s still big and bright enough to do some moon gazing, so keep reading to find out what features you might be able to see tonight.
What is today’s Moon phase?
As of Wednesday, April 29, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 94% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA’s Daily Moon Guide.
Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Vaproum, Tranquillitatis, and Imbrium. With binoculars, you’ll see the Mare Frigoris, Clavius Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you’ll see all this plus the Apollo 17 landing spot, Rima Ariadaeus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.
When is the next Full Moon?
The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.
What are Moon phases?
According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.
New Moon – The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
Mashable Light Speed
Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)
Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) – Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
Entertainment
The ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop is down to a record-low price at Amazon — now $400 off
TL;DR: Amazon has the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop on sale for $899.99, down from its $1,299.99 list price. That saves you $400 on a 2025 gaming laptop with an Intel Core i5-13450HX processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 graphics, 16GB of DDR5 memory, and a 165Hz FHD+ display.
$899.99
at Amazon
$1,299.99
Save $400
Finding a current-gen gaming laptop in today’s economy for under $1,000 is already amazing, but Amazon’s latest ASUS deal is offering you an all-time low bargain.
As of April 28, the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop is on sale for $899.99 at Amazon, marked down from $1,299.99. Price tracker camelcamelcamel has confirmed that this is the lowest-ever price for this gaming laptop.
For that price, you’re getting the RTX 5050 and Intel Core i5 version of the TUF Gaming F16, which is built around an Intel Core i5-13450HX processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop GPU. It also comes with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 512GB PCIe Gen4 SSD, so it should be nicely suited for jumping between games, school work, everyday browsing, and plenty of tabs without causing your sessions to come to a sudden crash.
With those sorts of specs, this version of the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 lets you comfortably run games from the latest graphically demanding titles — including Crimson Desert, Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and Pragmata.
Mashable Deals
The 16-inch FHD+ display is a big part of the appeal, with ASUS’s fitted 165Hz 16:10 panel with 100% sRGB color giving you extra vertical space compared to a standard 16:9 screen while keeping motion smoother in fast-paced games like Fortnite and Counter-Strike 2. The handy Adaptive-Sync also helps cut down on stuttering and screen tearing when your frame rate starts shifting during intense firefights or brawls with lots of assets moving around at the same time.
Mashable Deals
The TUF Gaming F16 keeps the series’ usual more rugged angle, as well. ASUS has had the laptop tested to MIL-STD-810H standards, while its 2nd Gen Arc Flow Fans, full-width heatsink, and full-width vent are designed to help keep performance steady without making the machine unnecessarily loud.
If you’re after a laptop that’s more for work than gaming, Samsung’s ultra-sleek Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 just got a $450 price cut.
Celtics' Brad Stevens named NBA Executive of Year
Mexico makes Liga MX call-ups ahead of pre-World Cup camp
