By The Verge | Created at 2025-01-28 21:36:21 | Updated at 2025-01-30 05:09:36
1 day ago
Meta is making sweeping changes to its content moderation policies, including abandoning third-party fact-checks in favor of X’s crowd-sourced “Community Notes” approach and loosening restrictions on topics like immigration and gender identity. Under the updated Hateful Conduct policy, for example, calling gay and trans people “mentally ill” is now allowed, while an explicit ban on referring to women as “household objects” has been removed.
Policy chief Joel Kaplan says that in pursuit of “More Speech and Fewer Mistakes,” Meta will focus more on preventing overenforcement of its content policies and less on mediating potentially harmful — but technically legal — discussions on its platform. The company is also ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement appeals to many of the new administration’s talking points. Zuckerberg, who has visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago multiple times since the election and attended the inauguration, has promised to move US content review from California to Texas, where he says there’s “less concern about the bias of our teams.” He also says Meta will work with Trump to “push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more.”
The vibes are off.
Some advertisers see Meta pulling back from moderation as a signal they should stop pushing social media outlets to keep hate speech in check, according to The Wall Street Journal. Some have reportedly already stepped back:
...the Association of National Advertisers, [which] represents major advertisers such as Procter & Gamble, AT&T and General Motors, quietly ended a brand-safety effort called “Engage Responsibly,” partly to avoid scrutiny or litigation...
Another look at Threads’ Community Notes.
Meta’s censoring of abortion information is nothing new
Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge
Earlier this week, several posts on the Instagram page of Aid Access, an abortion pill provider, were inaccessible to the public. Some images were blurred out, with no option to click through and view the post. Others appeared simply as a gray square with nondescript alt text, as if the image didn’t load.
Aid Access connects patients with doctors who provide abortion pills via telehealth appointments, and the posts that were blocked from being viewed included instructions for performing at-home abortions using pills. The issues on Instagram — first reported by Jessica Valenti — also reportedly made it difficult to find the Aid Access account using the app’s search function.
How Meta’s MAGA heel turn is a play for global power
Illustration by The Verge
On today’s episode of Decoder, we’re diving into an especially messy set of ideas. It’s been a chaotic couple of weeks for big tech companies as the second Trump administration kicks off an unprecedented era of how we think about who controls the internet. Meta’s changed its rules to openly allow more slurs and hate speech on its platforms, TikTok was banned and sort of unbanned, and a bunch of tech CEOs attended the second Trump inauguration.
There’s a major collision, or maybe merger, happening right now between billionaire power and state power and everyone who uses tech to communicate — so, basically everyone — is stuck in the middle.
Here’s how you might write Community Notes on Instagram.
Meta is already working on Community Notes for Threads
Illustration: The Verge
Meta announced last week that it would be ditching fact-checkers in favor of X-like Community Notes, and self-described “leaker” Alessandro Paluzzi shared screenshots on Monday showing what the feature might look like in Threads.
Based on the screenshots, it appears you’ll be able to start the process of writing a Community Note from the three-dots menu on a post, which is where you can already access features like muting an account or reporting a post. Another screenshot shows that when you write a Community Note, your note will be anonymous.
What does Mark Zuckerberg want from Donald Trump?
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
At this point, it’s pretty clear what Donald Trump wants from Mark Zuckerberg. But what does Zuckerberg, who has now gone to Mar-a-Lago twice since the November election, want from the President-elect?
That’s the question I’ve been asking sources in and around Meta over the last several days. They all described Meta’s relationship with the outgoing Biden administration as incredibly hostile. It’s safe to assume that Zuckerberg wants a reset for the MAGA regime, especially since Trump threatened not that long ago to imprison him for life.
Meta’s head of civil rights is leaving.
When Roy Austin was hired to run a new civil rights team in 2021, the company called it “an incredibly important role for Facebook and for the tech industry.” Now, Austin announces he is leaving on the same day that Meta is ending all DEI programs.
In his farewell post, Austin notes that members of his team will “continue their work” in different parts of the company. “Building for everyone, listening to everyone, and meeting the needs and expectations of our global community is pretty much impossible,” he says.
Mark Zuckerberg lies about content moderation to Joe Rogan’s face
I’ll spare you the experience of listening to one of the richest men in the world whine and just tell you straight out: Mark Zuckerberg’s interview on The Joe Rogan Experience is full of lies.
Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook’s parent company Meta, sets the tone at the very beginning: “I think at some level you only start one of these companies if you believe in giving people a voice, right?”
Mark Zuckerberg was back at Mar-a-Lago today.
One of his private jets just took off from West Palm Beach after arriving yesterday.
Mark Zuckerberg headed up the small team that rewrote Meta’s speech policies.
The New York Times reports that the team had “no more than a dozen close advisers” and that it worked on revising the policies with “Mr. Zuckerberg leading the charge.”
Zuckerberg has also “regularly spoken” to people like Marc Andreessen about “concerns that progressives are policing speech.”
Mark Zuckerberg is on Joe Rogan’s podcast to close out the week.
Meta disbands diversity team and says DEI has become ‘charged’
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
Meta is eliminating its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs because of the “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts” in the US, according to a memo to employees seen by Axios. Meta will also roll back representation goals and end its “diverse slate approach” to hiring.
The memo, which was written by Janelle Gale, Meta’s vice president of human resources, said the company would replace DEI programs with ones “that focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background,” as reported by Axios. The company will also “end efforts to source business suppliers from diverse-owned businesses.”
Meta gets specific about what type of hate speech it’s OK with.
Leaked training documents obtained by The Intercept offer more details about Meta’s updated Hateful Conduct rules. Specific examples of speech Meta allows include “Immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit,” “Jews are flat out greedier than Christians,” and “Trans people are immoral.”
“It’s total chaos internally at Meta right now.”
“The entire thread of comments shared is dissent toward the new policy, save for one leader repeating Zuckerberg talking points. I’d call the mood shock and disbelief,” they added. “It’s embarrassment and shame that feels self-inflicted, different than mistakes the company has made in the past.”
Oh, and as for Joel Kaplan’s More Speech and Fewer Mistakes, Meta is already answering an “error” that blanked out search results for “LGBT” and “Trans.”
Meta is highlighting a splintering global approach to online speech
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Meta’s overhaul of its content moderation and fact-checking policies in the US is bringing into focus a key geopolitical tension likely to grow under the incoming Trump administration: the regulation of speech online.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg made no secret of his attempt to align his interests with those of President-elect Donald Trump, saying he planned to work with Trump to “push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more” — naming Europe specifically. The US and the European Union have long had different approaches when it comes to digital regulation, which has at times inflamed tensions since many of the largest tech companies that end up being targeted by Europe’s rules are the US’s crown jewels. That dynamic is likely to be exacerbated under a second Trump administration, with the incoming president’s protectionist policies.
Social networking alternatives for the Meta- and Musk-averse
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge
As I write this, there are a lot of social network users who are wondering if they should look for a new home. Over at X, Elon Musk has essentially become part of the incoming Trump administration, while various changes have made the formerly popular social network a dark and forbidding forest for many of its former inhabitants.
Meanwhile, Meta’s announcement that it was abandoning third-party fact-checkers and moving its trust and safety teams from California to Texas is making some Facebook and Instagram members nervous. So nervous, in fact, that while we previously included Meta’s Threads social network in this article as a possible alternative to X, we’ve pulled it — at least for now.
Threads and Instagram are for politics now, says Adam Mosseri
Illustration: The Verge
Mark Zuckerberg is in Threads replies defending his content moderation changes.
The Meta CEO is pushing back on critics who say the company is only making its content policy changes because it’s “too hard for people to leave.” Zuckerberg shot back that he’s “counting on these changes actually making our platform better,” and while some may leave for “virtue signaling,” most users will enjoy the changes.
Meta’s third-party fact checking contracts will reportedly end in March.
The ten fact-checking organizations will continue to receive payments until August, and those who haven’t signed 2025 contracts could get severance, Business Insider reports. Meta told members of the International Fact-Checking Network that their partnerships were ending just 45 minutes before it publicly announced sweeping changes to its content moderation and fact checking policies.
Here are some of the horrible things that you can now say on Instagram and Facebook
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Meta is leaving its users to wade through hate and disinformation
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Image
Experts warn that Meta’s decision to end its third-party fact-checking program could allow disinformation and hate to fester online and permeate the real world.
The company announced today that it’s phasing out a program launched in 2016 where it partners with independent fact-checkers around the world to identify and review misinformation across its social media platforms. Meta is replacing the program with a crowdsourced approach to content moderation similar to X’s Community Notes.
“Mark, Meta — welcome to the party.”
X CEO Linda Yaccarino commended Mark Zuckerberg’s move to ditch third-party fact-checking in favor of a Community Notes-style moderation (inspired by X) onstage at CES. “It couldn’t be more validating,” Yaccarino said. “Mark and Meta realized that it’s the most effective, fastest fact checking, without bias.”
“Mark, Meta — welcome to the party,” she added.
Trump says his threats “probably” made Meta change its policies.
Zuckerberg says he’s moving Meta moderators to Texas because California seems too ‘biased’
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images
As part of Meta’s sweeping changes to content moderation announced today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that the company will also be moving its content moderation teams from California to Texas to “help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content,” he wrote on Threads.
“We’re going to move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, and our US-based content review is going to be based in Texas,” Zuckerberg says in a video about the changes. “As we work to promote free expression, I think that it will help us build trust to do this work in places where there’s less concern about the bias of our teams.”
