WASHINGTON, D.C., FEBRUARY 24, 2025 – The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) announced in a report released today that Meta’s recent and controversial policy changes mean the company could stop 97% of its content enforcement in key areas, notably hate speech. Troublingly, Meta has not stated if it will continue to proactively enforce content rules covering adult nudity, sexual activity, bullying, harassment, violence, incitement, suicide, and self-injury.

“Meta’s unprecedented policy rollback is an abdication of its responsibility to users, especially children and groups that face cruelty and hostility purely based on their identity,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO and Founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “Our research shows that Meta proactively addressed nearly 277 million pieces of content before the policy rollback in ‘at risk’ areas. Meta should clearly tell users which policies it will no longer proactively enforce and how it plans to keep people safe if it stops taking enforcement action on hundreds of millions of pieces of harmful content. As previous research by CCDH shows, Community Notes are a welcome addition to safety features on platforms but cannot and will never be able to replace dedicated moderation teams and AI detection fully.”

The CCDH report identified and investigated six key policy changes from Meta’s announcement on January 7, 2025:

1. Halting “proactive” enforcement of some policies on harmful content
2. Demoting less content “that might violate our standards”
3. Dropping policies on “immigration, gender identity and gender”
4. Replacing independent fact-checking with Community Notes
5. Halting the demotion of content about “elections, politics or social issues”
6. Moving trust and safety teams from California to Texas

Additional findings of the CCDH report include:

• Meta will demote less content “that might violate our standards”, despite Mark Zuckerberg calling this as an “effective strategy” to reduce viral misinformation.
• In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg said Meta had evidence that the closer “borderline content” came to violating platform policies, the more engagement it gets.
• He said that demoting this content would reduce misinformation and “create a healthier, less polarized discourse where people feel safe participating.”

Meta must tell users why it is dropping an approach that they said reduces misinformation and polarization that is bad for users.

Meta is dropping policies on “immigration, gender identity and gender”, with leaked internal guidance reported by journalists showing it will now permit statements such as:

• “Trans people aren’t real. They’re mentally ill.”
• “Immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit.”
• “Black people are more violent than Whites”
• “Mexicans are lazier than Asians.”
• “Jews are flat out greedier than Christians.”

Meta must tell users its assessment of the real-world consequences of this policy change and explain how it can continue to keep all of its users safe.

• Meta will replace independent fact-checking with Community Notes, and it intends to roll out this new system worldwide after deploying it in the US.
• Community Notes can be useful, but research from CCDH and others has found they perform poorly on divisive topics such as elections or viral misinformation.

“Meta is abandoning key protections against real-world harm, allowing, among other things, dehumanizing hate speech, harassment, bullying, and dangerous lies to spread more freely on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads,” said Ahmed. “By weakening enforcement and dropping key moderation policies to empower the loudest, most obnoxious, and malignant members of their userbase, Meta is making its platforms more hostile and dangerous for the average user without having the common courtesy to be transparent about these changes.”

CCDH believes that Meta should answer:

1. How will it keep users safe if it stops acting on millions of pieces of harmful content?
2. Why is Meta abandoning a strategy it said reduces misinformation and social polarization?
3. Why is Meta allowing dehumanizing hate speech back on its platforms?
4. How will Meta combat election misinformation after replacing independent factchecking?

Notes to Editor:
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