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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced significant changes to how the company will moderate its social media content. The changes could have far-reaching and dire effects for democracy and for people who have historically been targeted by online hate, experts and advocates say.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, revised its “hateful conduct” policy to remove the term “hate speech” and protections against online hate targeted at LGBTQ+ people, women, immigrants, people of color and other groups. Advocacy group GLAAD cited some examples of language that is now permitted on the platforms, including:

• Claims that LGBTQ+ people are “mentally ill” or “abnormal.”
• Calling trans and nonbinary people “it.”
• References to “women as household objects or property.”

Meta is also ending its program that enlisted third-party fact-checking partners to flag content that did not pass fact checks. Zuckerberg said in a video announcement that “fact-checkers have been too politically biased” and have “destroyed more than they created,” echoing language President Donald Trump and other Republicans have used for years to attack fact-checking. The New York Times reported that fact-checking groups who worked with Meta took issue with Zuckerberg’s characterization and said “they had no role in deciding what the company did with the content that was fact-checked.”

Meta will now employ a “Community Notes” model that relies on users to submit information about content and does not apply to paid ads. The network X, formerly Twitter, also uses a community notes model.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and other civil and human rights organizations are concerned that Meta’s new approach will endanger democracy and the safety of users.

“Fighting misinformation, disinformation and hate speech should be a top priority of both traditional and social media companies,” SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang said. “Failing to do so is undermining our democracy and threatens the safety of their users. Instead of mimicking the moves of other companies that have sadly allowed their platforms to devolve, Meta had an opportunity to lead with their professed values. Unfortunately, it seems that Meta’s leadership prioritizes political access more than organizational values.”

Pasha Dashtgard is the director of research for the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University. Dashtgard said the effects of Meta’s “explicit commitment to not countering misinformation” will be felt by everyone.

“This couldn’t be worse, frankly, for us as a democracy and for all of us,” Dashtgard said, noting that “increased polarization lays the groundwork for authoritarian undermining of democracy.”

“Bad-faith actors, extremist groups and individuals, organizations and institutions that are trying to undermine democracy couldn’t be happier that we are removing the guardrails on our social media platforms and in order to facilitate the creation of fully enclosed online ecosystems that are able to disseminate misinformation and motivate people to actively undermine democracy through participation in antigovernment militias and extremist groups,” he said.

‘Very good news,’ Trump says

Zuckerberg’s announcement about Meta’s policy updates came just two weeks before Trump was inaugurated for his second presidential term on Jan. 20. The announcement followed multiple visits by Zuckerberg to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in recent months. Meta also contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, hired longtime Republican lobbyist Joel Kaplan to lead the company’s global policy team, and appointed UFC president and Trump ally Dana White to the Meta board, according to ABC News.

Just four years ago, Zuckerberg banned Trump from Facebook and Instagram, saying the risks of allowing Trump on the platforms were “simply too great” after he repeatedly used the sites to broadcast election lies and cheer on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, according to CNN. Shortly after Meta publicized the new policy updates, Trump called the announcement “very good news” at a press conference and said he thought the changes were “probably” a direct response to threats he has made to Zuckerberg in the past.  

Zuckerberg said Meta will now focus on “restoring free expression on our platforms.” The changes seem to effectively end Meta’s years-long attempts at contending with the tension between free expression and civility.

Zuckerberg attended the inauguration along with other prominent figures in tech, such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and CEOs that included Sundar Pichai of Google; Tim Cook of Apple; Shou Zi Chew of TikTok; and Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX. Musk, the owner of X, has also been tapped by Trump as a leader for the new Department of Government Efficiency.

‘Flood of propaganda’

Pew Research Center statistics show that 68% of U.S. adults use Facebook and 47% use Instagram. Approximately 54% of adults say they at least sometimes get news from social media, up slightly from recent years. Dashtgard said he expects distinguishing between genuine content and misinformation, disinformation and fake content could become even more difficult for users.

“What you’re going to see is a flood of propaganda, hate speech and extremism in the form of videos, memes, fake AI-generated articles, AI-generated images, videos and audio that are going to be indistinguishable from genuine content,” he said. “It’s going to lead to an information collapse where, really, what’s going to happen is people are no longer going to be able to adequately determine what is real from not real.”

The result, Dashtgard said, could be media ecosystems that exist exceedingly to confirm preexisting worldviews, biases and stereotypes regardless of political affiliation.

“But when we’re talking about oppressed and marginalized communities … there is a more dangerous implication that … you’re going to be feeding people information that is going to justify violence and discrimination and hate against marginalized groups,” he said.

While the argument is often made that reducing content moderation and removing restrictions on hate activities enables “free speech” and online public forums of ideas, Dashtgard said that is not how it plays out.   

“What actually happens is that the most extreme, the most negative, the content that elicits hate and fear and anger are the stories that are going to be elevated the most,” he said.

He pointed to psychological science and research indicating that people tend to be drawn to more extreme political positions than they hold and that they are more predisposed to negative content. Research shows content that elicits anger spreads faster than content linked to any other emotion on social media networks.

‘Check the facts before you believe’

SPLC Intelligence Project Interim Director Rachel Carroll Rivas said Meta had made progress in controlling harmful content related to hard-right extremism and hate and antigovernment activities, notably banning some hard-right public figures and deleting thousands of militia groups and pages. Still, Meta’s content moderation has never adequately addressed harmful content consistently present on the platform, Carroll Rivas said. Particularly concerning now, she said, is whether the lines are blurring between alt-tech platforms like Gab, Rumble and Telegram and mainstream platforms like Facebook, Instagram and X.

Alt-tech spaces were set up as purposely unmoderated to cater to users who wanted an unmoderated space, Carroll Rivas said.

“That led itself to being mostly then a space for people to say and act on really divisive, violent, discriminatory, biased ideas and content and (hard-right) organizing,” Carroll Rivas said. “Some of that same activity did happen in mainstream social media spaces, but with some content moderation and setting the standard that it was not going to be allowed, there was a lot less of that. … So, the question is, is that line between mainstream social media and alt-tech gone?”

Huang encourages social media users to approach content critically and thoughtfully to avoid spreading or engaging with misinformation and disinformation.

“As you engage with companies that have abandoned their commitment to ensuring accurate and fact-based information, be mindful of what and who you interact with,” Huang said. “Have healthy skepticism of the individuals you follow and the posts that go viral, so that you don’t unwittingly participate in an ecosystem of misinformation. Check the facts, before you believe or repost.”

Young people are particularly vulnerable to being targeted by harmful and hateful content on social media. All trusted adults have an important role to play in supporting young people through polarizing times and in developing skills and knowledge to guard against online radicalization, Dashtgard said. SPLC and PERIL offer guides for parents, caregivers, educators and others to help prevent youth radicalization and build resilient, inclusive communities. 

The SPLC’s Learning for Justice (LFJ) K-12 Digital Literacy Framework offers a guide for educators supporting students in developing digital and civic literacy skills. The framework covers seven key areas for learning and includes lessons, classroom-ready videos and a corresponding podcast, The Mind Online. More than ever, supporting young people in becoming responsible digital citizens is critical, LFJ Director Jalaya Liles Dunn said.

“Young people have the power to shape how we cultivate an environment that centers critical thinking and civic responsibility,” she said.  

Prevention is the key to helping people of all ages avoid adopting hateful ideologies based on harmful online content, Dashtgard said. Resources from SPLC and PERIL, including the new report Not Just a Joke: Understanding & Preventing Gender- and Sexuality-Based Bigotry, can offer knowledge and strategies for approaching conversations.

“Prevention is the silver bullet,” Dashtgard said. “It’s so much harder to walk somebody back once they have fallen down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and hateful ideologies. It is paramount that we offer knowledge and effective strategies for how to prevent people from being radicalized in the first place.”