This morning, Meta announced a pullback in its content moderation policies, just in time for a new administration to enter the White House. Meta’s current emphasis on “free expression” takes a turn from previous positions during and after the 2020 election, when it heavily promoted the measures that Meta was then taking to reduce the spread of misinformation and disinformation on its platform. This new tune reflects a growing shift in American sentiment around anti-censorship and free speech, which were central themes during this US presidential election.

With five primary changes, Meta will:

  1. Swap third-party fact checkers with X-like Community Notes.
  2. Simplify policies and reduce restrictions to allow more content through.
  3. Dial back content filters and focus them on high-severity violations instead of all violations.
  4. Bring back political content on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
  5. Move moderation teams to Texas to alleviate concerns about political bias in California.

Policy Simplification Isn’t Necessarily A Bad Thing

Overzealous safety measures and keyword blocking lists are problematic in the media industry. Brands have essentially defunded the news for fear of controversy, and the few vendor-certified, brand-safe URLs have surged in price. Forrester predicts that the dam will break on unsustainable brand safety measures in 2025. The sentiment behind Meta’s proposed changes, to stop censoring innocuous content, makes sense. Even Mark Zuckerberg admits that this comes with a trade-off: Meta won’t catch all the “bad stuff” on the platform as a result. Consumers already think that social media platforms are riddled with fake news: Eighty-one percent of US online adults say there’s a lot of fake news and misinformation on social media. If these policy changes result in platform experiences riddled with spam and hateful content, consumers might spend their time elsewhere.

Meta’s Changes Will Put Some Ad Dollars At Risk

We’ve seen this moderation story play out already on X. When Elon Musk transformed X into a “free speech” platform, many brands stopped spending media dollars because they started appearing next to neo-Nazi content. In fact, WARC estimates that X missed out on nearly $6 billion in ad revenue since Musk took over in 2022.

But … Meta isn’t X. It’s a much stronger paid media platform. It offers unprecedented scale to advertisers with auto-optimization capabilities between Facebook and Instagram (and eventually Threads). It’s an incredibly efficient one-stop shop for brands to reach their target audiences. While it was fairly easy for many advertisers to take a stand and say goodbye to X, the same won’t be true for Meta. Meta’s apps are — and will remain — a core part of most companies’ media mixes. And Meta’s position is only strengthened by the uncertainty around TikTok’s future.

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