Mark Zuckerberg's unexpected 'free speech' moderation of Meta content has sparked concern among advertisers that it will lead to the spread of malicious content and misinformation across social media platforms.
Several marketing executives told the Financial Times that Meta's move to end truth-seeking process and weakening hate speech policies can cost the platform, where sales represent the majority of the 135 billion dollars in annual sales, if brands fear that their ads may run alongside toxic content.
“Some brands will be evaluating their strategies carefully and it will undoubtedly be a commercial problem for both sides,” said Fergus McCallum, director at advertising agency TBWA\MCR.
The 1.5tn company to quickly release its content on the Internet marks the rise of Zuckerberg's recent desire to like the president-elect Donald Trump and his new right-hand man Elon Musk.
In just a few days, this saw him replace the head of Meta's global program Nick Clegg with a well-known Republican friend Joel Kaplan, and appoint the karate titan and friend of Trump Dana White to its board. On Friday, the company announced internally that it is ending its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, while Zuckerberg appeared on Joe Rogan's. podcast saying that corporations were “culturally debased” and needed more “masculine power” and “celebrate more aggression”.
But the move to dump fact-checkers on the 'public notes' platform launched by Musk's X – where users themselves display fake information – is not stabilizing the ad industry and has given brand safety concerns to rivals X and TikTok in recent years.
Meta has long dominated advertising alongside Google, building a reputation as a safe, high-return investment site with close relationships with leading brands. In contrast, X was beaten by merchant migration in addition to moderation concerns following Musk's purchase of the platform two years ago, which has reduced its revenue.
“Meta has done a great job of cleaning up the worst of the toxic content and if (their) new approach fixes this, marketers will see it quickly and punish them,” said Richard Exon, founder at marketing agency The Joint.
In X, community articles allow users to offer to “add content” below other people's posts, although this will only appear when a consensus of other contributors from “different perspectives” agrees that it is helpful.
Critics argue that fact-checking efforts are much slower to call out lies and conspiracies than professional, trained, and user-controlled people.
Lou Paskalis, chief executive of marketing consultancy AJL Advisory and former director of media at Bank of America, said Meta noted that the change “makes heads for risk-averse traders”, adding that some “will reduce their trust” in Meta as a result.
Some marketing executives described feeling “intimidated” and wanted more information from the platform about how the change would be implemented.
“Products are entering a new world where established rules of operation can no longer be relied upon,” said Patrick Reid, group chief executive at Imagination, a creative marketing agency.
Concerns have also been raised about Meta's plans to change its systems to “dramatically reduce” the volume of content that its automated filters remove from its platforms.
That includes lifting restrictions on topics such as immigration and sex, focusing its programs on “illegal and serious crimes”, such as terrorism, child abuse and fraud, and content related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. Zuckerberg himself admitted that his systems will now catch “smaller bad things”.
Some industry executives were more skeptical that the changes would cause the downfall of Meta's advertising business. “I don't think advertisers will care as long as the platform is running – but they will if the content is optimized,” said one advertising agency executive.
Alex Cheeseman, head of UK business, Outbrain, said “the cold, hard truth is that advertisers only care if they hurt their numbers. If performance remains stable, no one will lose sleep over the 'where' or 'how' of their ads. “.
At the Consumer Electronics Show this week, Meta's chief marketing officer Alex Schultz said the company's brand safety tools are always 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 vendor security tools.
Meta's policy is rapidly changing and opinion is divided within the company. One person said some employees view the moderation update as a significant safety rollback, but added employees are “afraid to speak out” because Meta has received several rounds of rejections since the pandemic.
One employee said that the internal response to the change in social media has been very positive, especially since fact-checking is considered a “thankless” job because one side or the other is bound to accuse you of taking sides.
Those who know Zuckerberg say he has long been a supporter of free speech, but he has shaped his political stance and public pressure over the years.
“It's becoming a habit,” said Katie Harbath, a former policy director who worked on Meta's election strategy for a decade. “After every major election since 2016, Marko has made these big changes – to where the spirit of the people and the administration is blowing. This is one of those changes.”
Zuckerberg first introduced third-party fact-checking as part of a raft of measures in late 2016 designed to address criticism of misinformation on Facebook. But this week Zuckerberg accused governments and “legacy media” of forcing his company to “test more and more”, and accused fact-checkers of “too much political bias”.
Linda Yaccarino, the chief executive of X, said in a conference on Tuesday: “Mark, Meta, welcome to the group”.
Asked about Meta's new changes at a press conference, Trump said he thought the tech group had “gone too far”, adding that Zuckerberg was “probably” responding to threats he made earlier.
On the campaign trail, Trump threatened to imprison a social media executive on election meddling charges and called his company an “enemy of the people” over the allegations.
Experts see Zuckerberg's transition as a business decision as we envision it.
The Meta boss is pouring billions of dollars into its ambitions to become a “leader” in artificial intelligence, and has been publicly promoting its open-source approach to AI as regulators around the world circle the space.
“The main reason Mark sees the influence Elon has, (venture capitalists Marc) Andreessen and (David) Sacks have on Trump and they want to make sure he's in that mix,” Harbath said.
The move 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 prevent competitors, and wants to force the company to release its purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp.
“In order not to break up the company because of antitrust practices, which he understands can be greatly influenced by whoever is in charge in Washington, Zuckerberg has to be a friend,” said David Evan Harris, a sociologist at the University of California. , Berkeley and a former Meta employee.
Additional reporting by Cristina Criddle in San Francisco and Clara Murray in London