Mark Zuckerberg’s unexpected ‘freedom of speech’ overhaul of Meta’s content moderation has raised concerns among advertisers that it will lead to waves of harmful content and misinformation on the social media platform.
Multiple advertising bosses told the Financial Times that Meta’s move ended his fact-checking program and weaken hate speech policies could cost the platform, where marketing accounts for most of its $135 billion in annual sales, if brands fear their ads could appear alongside toxic content.
“Some brands will already be carefully evaluating their plans and this will no doubt become a commercial conundrum for both parties,” said Fergus McCallum, head of advertising agency TBWA\MCR.
The drastic loosening of internet content by the $1.5 trillion company marks an escalation in Zuckerberg’s recent push to ingratiate himself with President-elect Donald Trump and his new right-hand man, Elon Musk.
In just a few days, he replaced Meta’s global policy chief Nick Clegg with prominent Republican ally Joel Kaplan, as well as appointing martial arts titan and Trump friend Dan White to the board of directors. On Friday, the company announced internally that it was also ending its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, while Zuckerberg appeared on Joe Rogan podcast to say that corporations have become “culturally neutered” and need more “masculine energy” and “celebrate aggression a little more”.
But the move to ditch professional fact-checkers in favor of the ‘community notes’ approach pioneered by Musk’s X — where users flag misinformation themselves — has rattled the advertising industry over brand safety concerns with rivals X and TikTok in recent years.
Target has long dominated marketing spend alongside Google, building a reputation as a relatively safe haven, with high ROI and close relationships with major brands. In contrast, X hit an exodus of merchants due to concerns about moderation following Musk’s purchase of the platform two years ago, which decimated its revenue.
“Target has done a great job cleaning up the worst excesses of toxic content and if their new policy undoes that, advertisers will be quick to see and punish them,” said Richard Exon, founder of ad agency Joint.
On Xu, community notes allow users to offer to “add context” below other people’s posts, although this will only appear when a consensus of other contributors “from different points of view” agrees that it is useful.
Critics argue that mass fact-checking efforts are far slower at flagging falsehoods and conspiracies than professional, trained individuals and can be manipulated by users.
Lou Paskalis, managing director of marketing consultancy AJL Advisory and a former media executive at Bank of America, said the change in Meta’s community notes “creates a headwind for risk-averse marketers,” adding that some will “reduce their reliance” as a result. ” at the Met.
Other advertising executives described feeling “nervous” and asked for more information from the platform about exactly how the changes would be implemented.
“Brands are entering a new world where they can no longer rely on established rules of operation,” said Patrick Reid, group managing director at Imagination, a creative advertising agency.
Concerns have also been raised about Meta’s plans to change its systems to “dramatically reduce” the amount of content its automated filters remove from its platforms.
This includes removing restrictions on topics such as immigration and gender, to focus the systems on “illegal and serious offences”, such as terrorism, child exploitation and fraud, as well as content related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. Zuckerberg himself admitted that his systems will now catch “less bad stuff”.
Other industry executives were more skeptical that the change would have major ramifications for Meta’s ad business. “I don’t think advertisers will care as long as the platform works – but they will if the content becomes more polarized,” said the head of one major ad agency.
Alex Cheeseman, UK head of Outbrain, said “the cold, hard truth is that advertisers will only care if it hurts their numbers. If performance remains stable, no one will lose sleep over ‘where’ or ‘how’ their ads are being served”.
At the Consumer Electronics Show this week, Meta chief marketing officer Alex Schultz said the company’s brand safety tools remain in place and the company is “not rushing” the rollout to give advertisers “time to adjust and understand.” Nicola Mendelsohn, head of Meta’s global business group, wrote in a LinkedIn post that the company will continue to invest in security tools for advertisers.
Meta’s policy changes immediately divided opinion within the company. One person said some staff viewed the moderation updates as rolling back important protections, but added that employees are “afraid to really speak up” as Meta has gone through several painful rounds of layoffs since the pandemic.
Another employee said the internal reaction to the move to community notes has been mostly positive, particularly because fact-checking is considered a “thankless” task “because you’re bound to be accused of taking sides by one side or the other.”
Those who know Zuckerberg say he has long been an advocate for free speech, but has shaped his views over the years to political and public pressure.
“It’s becoming a trend,” said Katie Harbath, a former policy director who worked on Meta’s election strategy for a decade. “After every major election since 2016, Mark has been making these big moves — going where the social and regulatory winds are blowing. This is another one of those realignments.”
Zuckerberg first introduced third-party fact-checking as part of a series of measures in late 2016 designed to address criticism of misinformation on Facebook. But this week Zuckerberg blamed governments and “legacy media” for pushing his company into “increasing censorship” and accused fact-checkers of being “too politically biased.”
Linda Yaccarino, chief executive of X, said at the conference on Tuesday: “Mark, Meta, welcome to the party.”
Asked about Meta’s new changes at a news conference, Trump said he thought the tech group had “come too far,” adding that Zuckerberg was “probably” responding to threats he had previously made against him.
During the campaign, Trump threatened to jail a social media chief for alleged election meddling and called his company an “enemy of the people” for alleged censorship.
Experts believe that Zuckerberg’s change is as much a business as an ideological decision.
Meta’s boss is pouring billions of dollars into his ambitions to become a “leader” in artificial intelligence and is publicly promoting his open source approach to artificial intelligence as regulators globally circle the space.
“A big reason Mark sees the impact that Elon, [venture capitalists Marc] Andreessen and [David] Sacks has a problem with Trump and wants to make sure he’s in the mix,” Harbath said.
The move also comes ahead of the tech group facing a major antitrust trial in April. The Federal Trade Commission has accused the social media group of maintaining monopoly power and using a “buy or bury” strategy to neutralize competitors, and is seeking to force the company to end its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
“In order for the company not to be torn apart by antitrust actions, which he understands can be heavily influenced by those in power in Washington, Zuckerberg has to be a chameleon,” said David Evan Harris, Chancellor’s Public Scholar at the University of California. , Berkeley and former employee of Meta.
Additional reporting by Cristina Criddle in San Francisco and Clare Murray in London
