Zuckerberg admits that more inflammatory content is coming to Facebook and Instagram. But for brands, ditching Meta won’t be a bet worth taking, say experts.
Zuckerberg appears to be cozying up to Donald Trump ahead of the president-elect's January 20 inauguration
Meta is overhauling its content moderation and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, signaling a major strategic pivot amid shifting legal and political dynamics under the incoming Trump administration. Despite the possibility that the shift will invite more pressing brand safety threats onto Facebook and Instagram, experts say advertisers are likely to keep investing.
The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced last week that the tech giant will roll back content moderation restrictions on its platforms. An internal memo shared at the company, obtained by The Intercept, outlines examples of language that would have previously been banned on the social platforms but will now be permissible; examples included “Immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit” and “Gays are freaks.”
Zuckerberg framed the move as a return to Meta’s foundational principles of free expression, though he acknowledged that the shift could result in more controversial content on its platforms.
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The company also plans to phase out its longstanding fact-checking program in favor of a Community Notes system like X’s, which enables users to add commentary and color to posts, potentially helping to clear up misinformation or add relevant context.
In an interview with The Drum last Tuesday, Meta’s chief marketing officer Alex Schultz said he supports the change. “I understand what we’re doing. I feel really good about it,” he said. “I actually think it’s probably wrong to frame it as ‘getting rid of content protections’ and it’s right to frame it as ‘reducing censorship and mistakes and getting to a better, more balanced place.’ This fits with the core and history of the company.”
Just three days after the announcement, the company said that it would also shutter its DEI programs, which included representation goals, internal equity training and supplier diversity initiatives. In lieu of these programs, the company said in an internal memo reviewed by Axios that it plans to invest in universal bias mitigation programs rather than programs perceived as preferential.
Many digital media experts disavow the decisions. “These policy changes suggest that Meta is returning to its original DEI mission: to amplify Demonstrably Erroneous Information,” Eric Schmitt, a Gartner vice-president analyst specializing in digital media, tells The Drum.
The changes evidence a rightward shift for Zuckerberg and Meta platforms ahead of the inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump on January 20. They come just weeks after Meta donated $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund.
Zuckerberg’s actions mirror those of other Silicon Valley moguls who’ve cozied up to the incoming president in recent months. Amazon, like Meta, donated $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund and recently cut a $40m check to produce a documentary about Melania Trump. Investor Marc Andreessen has become a quiet ally, making a number of visits to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump. Meanwhile, X owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has established himself as Trump’s most vocal supporter in tech, joining the former president on the campaign trail last fall and set to join the president-elect’s cabinet in a new cost-cutting role. Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg all reportedly plan to attend Trump’s inauguration next week.
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Meta’s policy changes will likely result in an influx of misinformation, hateful speech and inflammatory speech on Facebook and Instagram – a possibility that could spook advertisers who may be wary of their messages appearing alongside unsavory content.
“Advertisers are already skittish about brand safety on social platforms such as Meta,” says Shiv Gupta, an adtech industry vet and the managing partner at digital marketing education firm U of Digital.
The addition of a Community Notes feature to content on Meta platforms won’t quell advertisers’ concerns, Gupta says, considering that X – the inspiration for the feature – “already has a poor reputation for brand safety.”
For X, the loosening of content moderation has been devastating. The platform has seen its ads business – which previously accounted for the vast majority of its annual revenues – buckle as advertisers flee. Recent data from the World Advertising Research Center (WARC) indicates that from 2022 to 2023, the company’s ad revenue plunged 46.4%, from $4.5bn down to $2.2bn. X is on track to tally even less in the 2024 financial year.
Is Meta headed for a similar fate?
Despite the comparisons to X, Meta occupies a much more formidable positioning in the digital advertising ecosystem – according to eMarketer data, it controls over 21% of the US digital ad market, second only to Google. Its dominance alone may protect it from serious financial damage as a result of advertiser pullback.
“This won’t meaningfully impact Meta’s ad business,” says Jasmine Enberg, vice-president and principal analyst at eMarketer. “Its scale, ease of use and ability to drive results… will insulate it from an X-like advertiser exodus. Meta is an essential platform for advertisers, so it will be much harder for them to pull the plug on Meta as they did on X – even if the changes result in the spread of unsafe content for brands.”
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It’s a prediction shared by Martin SFP Bryant, founder of the tech newsletter PreSeed Now and co-editor of the Geekout social media newsletter. “Meta’s ad platform drives significant results for many businesses,” he says, making it “unlikely” that major brands will make a full exit.
The abundance of small and medium-sized businesses on Instagram and Facebook will also work in Meta’s favor, Enberg predicts, as many of these organizations are “less likely to be bothered by brand safety concerns than big brands, and will continue to turn to Meta regardless.” X, on the other hand, historically courted heavyweights such as Coca-Cola, Apple and IBM, making the impact of their departures all the more notable, Enberg notes.
The real impact of these changes could be seen in the broader sea change underway in our political landscape, Enberg predicts. In her view, every significant change that Meta makes sparks “a ripple effect across the social landscape” – which in this case could mean that social platforms follow suit with increasingly lax content moderation practices.
“In Trump-era social media,” she says, “advertisers may have to get more comfortable advertising on platforms that host content they’ve long tried to avoid.”
Of course, it’s gospel that advertisers will always follow eyeballs. In the case that users themselves dislike the content they encounter on Facebook and Instagram in the coming months, it’s possible they may migrate to alternative platforms – with advertisers close on their heels.
In Bryant’s words: “If Meta overplays its hand in how it rolls out these changes, making its apps less pleasant places to be, we will see user behavior shift, which could prompt changes in brand behavior… In Trump’s America, it will take users to speak up and take action by shifting where they spend their time online for it to have a substantial impact on Meta’s business and brands’ ad strategies.”
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.