Friend,

Remember Mark Zuckerberg’s staggering announcement last month that he was dismantling Meta’s fact-checking program? CCDH dug a bit deeper to understand what is really changing and how Facebook, Instagram, and Threads users will be affected in the long run.

Meta is taking a huge step backwards by dismantling key protections against harmful content, allowing dehumanizing hate speech and misinformation to spread more freely on its platforms.

Our analysis shows that Meta could stop 97% of its content enforcement in key policy areas, notably hate speech.

Let’s break it down. Meta is:

1. Halting “proactive” enforcement of some policies on harmful content, instead acting only on content reported by users

2. Demoting less content “that might violate our standards”

3. Dropping policies on “immigration, gender identity and gender”. Now, when scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, or Threads, it’s more likely you'll come across slurs Meta has told its moderators are now acceptable, 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.”

4. Replacing independent fact-checking with a copy of Elon Musk’s flawed user-generated Community Notes

Meta is on its way to making its platforms more hostile and dangerous for its 3.35 billion daily users across the world - without even coming clean with them about the changes.

With key protections gone, how will Meta keep people safe? Friend, join us in urging Meta to explain why it is abandoning such important systems against hate and lies, and how it will protect users from now on.

Best wishes,

The CCDH Team