Meta soothes ad giants with ‘community notes’ after US fact-checking overhaul

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has sought to appease major advertisers following its decision to scrap third-party fact-checking in the US.

Senior executives led by Nicola Mendelsohn, head of Meta’s global business, have held a series of meetings in recent days to address concerns about brand safety and content moderation.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta, earlier this month announced the end of the platform’s long-standing US fact-checking partnership and cited a new reliance on users to report misinformation. Under the revised policy, the company will provide “community feedback,” mirroring the approach adopted by Elon Musk at X. Zuckerberg defended the shift during an eight-minute video statement, claiming that external fact-checking led to “too many errors and violations.” Too much oversight.”

Mendelsohn, speaking in Davos at the World Economic Forum, insisted Meta had not abandoned its commitment to brand integrity. “No change. Absolutely no change. It’s business as usual,” she said. She stressed Meta’s deep investment in “relevance tools” that allow advertisers to avoid being placed next to political or socially sensitive content, adding that “advertisers can choose where they want Or they don’t want to put their ads in it.”

The move comes against the backdrop of shrinking ad revenue at rival X, which saw a sharp decline from an estimated US$4.5 billion in 2022 to US$2.2 billion in 2023 amid controversy over Musk’s approach to content moderation.

Mendelsohn coined Meta’s pivot as “returning to our roots,” stressing that the platform’s original mission was to enable freedom of expression and open debate. It played down the risk of damaging the brand, arguing that while the company may be “moving faster” in its changes, it remains committed to its “core DNA”.

In addition to abandoning fact-checking in the US, Zuckerberg announced plans to tweak algorithms to once again promote political posts, reversing previous policy that deliberately marginalized such content.

Separately, Meta revealed that it would also rescind its diversity, equity and inclusion hiring policies, citing the “changing legal and political landscape” in a statement issued ahead of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration.