Meta executives have told advertisers in the US that they are committed to brand safety, despite a significant change in content moderation. The company’s VP of content policy, Monika Bickert, stated that Meta wants to remove content that contributes to increased safety risks, while allowing people to discuss news and current events without being overly restrictive.
Meta is changing its approach to hate speech, replacing the term with “hateful conduct”. This change means that certain statements that were previously prohibited, such as those that call for excluding people from jobs based on their gender, may now be allowed. Advertisers can still choose to exclude their ads from being placed next to controversial posts, but it is unclear how effective this will be.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that the company would be replacing its third-party fact checkers in the US with a new feature called Community Notes. This change aims to reduce censorship on the platform and prioritize free speech. Zuckerberg stated that third-party fact checkers had become too biased and were no longer effective.
The company’s global affairs chief, Joe Kaplan, believes that this approach has been successful on another platform and could be a better way to provide people with information about what they are seeing. There are currently no plans to introduce this change to Australia.
This change has raised concerns among senior industry media planners and buyers, who believe that it represents a significant risk for Meta. They are worried that the change could impact the user experience, drive people away from the platform, and change the makeup of who stays on the platform. As a result, advertisers may be forced to reevaluate their long-term relationships with Meta and consider whether it is still a good fit for their media mix.
