Meta and ‘Community Notes’: Will Zuckerberg’s new approach affect his advertising business?

In 2021 Meta made the decision to block the accounts of Donald Trump from Facebook and Instagram. At that time, the company Mark Zuckerberg argued that the risks of allowing its presence on those platforms were “simply too great.” Now, coinciding with Trump’s return to the White House, the company behind social networks such as Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp has announced various measures that seem to aim smooth out rough edges with the one who will once again be president of the United States.

This week Meta announced that will abandon its content moderation model, and instead adopt a ‘Community Notes’ systema protocol similar to the one Elon Musk established in X. “It’s time to return to our roots around free expression,” Zuckerberg stated through a video in which he made public the decision to replace fact-checkers with ‘Community Notes’.

Meta’s content moderation policy will follow a similar route to that of X in the United States. It should be noted that advertisers have fled from X en masse over the course of the last two years, and Musk even went so far as to accuse advertisers of blackmail and trying to “kill” the social network with their advertising boycott.

Concerns about Meta’s decision

According to Andrew HutchinsonHead of Content and Social Media at Social Media Today, Facebook and Instagram are key platforms in brands’ communication strategies. “While it was relatively easy to take a moral stance on X, which has a fraction of Meta’s audience, I don’t think brands will be as willing to do the same this time.”

Therefore, It does not seem that Facebook and Instagram are going to experience a flight of advertisers similar to that of X. Both social networks are essential in terms of reach and scalability, despite the numerous brand safety dangers that Zuckerberg’s decision may pose.

The decision has been made in the United States, but the European Commission has warned Zuckerberg that do not end the fact-checking program in Europe, and if it fires its fact-checkers in the EU, as it announced yesterday it would do in the United States, it would first have to submit a risk assessment to the Commission.

‘Community Notes’ and the effect on advertisers

From MarketingDirecto.com – MKD we contacted the Spanish Association of Advertisers, to find out how these changes could affect advertisers on the social network. The AEA defends the autonomy of companies in terms of how they manage their content: «What we are convinced of is that the marketing tendency of advertising companies is to flee from unclear areas regarding the verifiability of content. Transparency and ethics are increasingly determining factors.

The AEA points out that in this context advertisers will need greater ethical governance and transparency to align their content and brand values, while avoiding the risks involved in associating with misinformation, advertising fraud or poor data management. «At the AEA we support compliance with the applicable regulations in Spain and Europe, on this occasion, large platforms such as Meta would be subject to them, as is the case of the DSA, which requires them to analyze and evaluate the illegal content using, to do so, its content moderation systems.

What will happen to advertising?

Facebook is one of the most popular digital platforms in the world, and according to WARC estimates it has a global advertising audience of 2.2 billion and approximately 3 billion monthly users on its platform, while Instagram is around 2.1 billion. But, How will advertisers react to the company’s change?

“Twitter’s precedent shows that some advertisers could react by withdrawing budgets,” explains the content creator, marketing expert and founder of Todo es Marketing. Itziar Oltra. However, Meta Ads is the leading tool for advertising investment in social ads, and many brands depend significantly on it. “This will likely limit drastic changes, although it is possible that advertisers with more sensitive or polarizing messages will adjust their messages and strategies to adapt to the new Community Notes context, or slightly diversify their budgets towards other platforms in search of greater security,” he highlights.

“The decision made by Meta seems to be seeking to bring the company closer to the previous decisions made by X and thus, to the thinking of the new North American government,” adds Oltra. Furthermore, it highlights that while allowing the community to participate in verification promotes greater freedom of expression, it also delegates a complex responsibility to users, who are not experts in all areas, which could generate uncertainty about the reliability of these notes.

«This movement also could be motivated by Meta’s attempt to reduce criticism of possible biases or perceptions of private interests those they faced by leaving the verification of information to date in the hands of private companies,” adds the expert.