On 7th January 2025 Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan announced that “starting in the US” it was ending their third-party fact checking programme and moving to a Community Notes model. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg repeated this in a video published online at the same time.
News reports stated that Meta has no immediate plans to remove fact-checkers in the UK and EU. (Source: bbc.co.uk)
Meta’s global Transparency Center website was updated on the same day with a number of significant changes. We understand these changes are separate from the fact checking announcement and will have immediate effect in all territories.
Here is a summary of the changes:
The term "hateful speech" has been replaced with "hateful conduct," encompassing content to be removed. This includes harmful stereotypes such as dehumanising comparisons and calls for exclusion or segregation targeting protected characteristics.
Discussions on access to sex- or gender-restricted spaces, such as bathrooms, will be allowed, including exclusionary or insulting language when addressing transgender rights, immigration, or homosexuality. Sex- or gender-exclusive language in debates on schools, military, law enforcement, or teaching within political or religious contexts is also permitted.
Users will now be permitted to refer to transgender and non-binary people as “it” and women as household objects or property. User comments saying that people with protected characteristics don’t exist or shouldn’t exist will now be allowed.
Religious content advocating exclusion from jobs in law enforcement, the military, or teaching based on gender or sexual orientation will be allowed. Comments calling for sex- or gender-based exclusion from spaces like restrooms, sports, health groups, or schools are permitted. The updated text (using outdated terms) states, “Allegations of mental illness or abnormality based on gender or sexual orientation are allowed within political and religious discourse on transgenderism and homosexuality.” Meta continues to ban content promoting products or services to alter sexual orientation or gender identity.
On 10th January Meta’s vice president of Human Resources Janelle Gale wrote an internal memo to employees saying that the company was ending its major DEI programmes. The memo was posted on Workplace, the company’s internal communications platform, and leaked to news site axios.com.
What is Outvertising doing?
Outvertising has previously worked with Meta as the host of Outvertising Live. This will not continue.
Outvertising is closing its Instagram account and reviewing our WhatsApp usage. We are not on Facebook or Threads.
We will be working with Social Element to monitor the changes and their impact on Meta’s platforms.
What can you do – as an advertising and marketing professional?
You can review your organisation’s use of Meta’s social and advertising platforms. We recommend you read the Conscious Advertising Network’s Hate Speech Manifesto and How To Stop Funding Hate.
What can you do – as an individual?
You can consider two areas of action: changing, reducing or stopping your use of Meta’s platforms Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, whilst also protecting yourself when online in these spaces. US-based LGBTQIA+ advocacy and cultural change non-profit GLAAD has published a digital safety guide and young people’s LGBTQIA+ support group The Trevor Project has published an online safety guide. If you work in advertising in the UK for Meta or work closely with them and you have been affected personally by these changes you can contact NABS for emotional and workplace legal support.
The Online Safety Act 2023
Meta’s actions have brought into focus the UK’s Online Safety Act which is designed to protect online users, especially children. In December 2024 Ofcom published its first policy statements with enforcement action possible from March 2025. Ofcom has the power to impose fines of up to £18m or 10% of the provider’s qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater, and in serious cases to block services.