Community Notes: Meta's Moderation Move

Meta is Transitioning Away From Third-Party Fact-Checkers: What This Means for Advertisers

On January 7, 2025, Meta announced it would be transitioning away from third-party fact-checkers to Community Notes in the coming months. Following recent years of social media platform scrutiny, and likely in an effort to reduce complaints on censorship, Meta is making this change to “return to [Facebook’s original] fundamental commitment to free expression” for its users. In Mark Zuckerberg’s Reel on the announcement, he mentions the complex systems they’ve invested in have made too many mistakes to continue trusting with content moderation. The move to the Community Notes model mirrors the change X (formerly Twitter) made in 2022. This mode of content moderation puts the onus on users “to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context.”

By simplifying policies and adopting Community Notes, Meta feeds are likely to resemble the content changes X users experienced. These policy changes resulted in an influx of non-brand safe content and, ultimately, a severe loss in total users. In North America alone, the platform lost 4.3% of its users in 2023, another 4.6% in 2024 and, most recently, saw a 3.8% loss in user count. In addition to the user loss, in the first year, X’s advertising revenue dropped nearly 52% and has continued to steadily decline each year. This severe drop in ad revenue, as stated by eMarketer, shows “a lack of trust in the platform.” Paired with X’s controversial management decisions and unsupportive comments in response to advertisers moving budgets elsewhere, the platform has yet to recover. 

For Meta, the advertising future looks less grim for the simple reason of scale. Meta houses Facebook, a platform that has shown resilience in the social space; Instagram, which hosts 63% of social network users in North America; Threads, a non-monetized social sharing platform; and WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging platform. As a company, Meta stands to lose much less in total, should brands or users leave the platform. Facebook and Instagram currently generate the highest average revenues in the U.S., and, moving forward, advertisers will be faced with a decision based on risk tolerance. 

With two of the largest social advertising platforms under the Meta roof, advertisers will need to closely evaluate performance, delivery, and return on both. By loosening the reins on content policies, creative formats, messaging, delivery, and sentiment will all be impacted. Some brands may scale back spend on Meta initially to monitor the ecosystem as a whole and determine how to enter the space with intention and brand safety measures in place.  

Investments for advertisers on Meta apps will be dependent on their tolerance for ad waste, contextual brand safety, brand recognition, and revenue loss. Under the Community Notes model, bot activity is likely to increase, causing fraudulent delivery and skewed performance metrics. By investing in third-party brand safety measures, advertisers will need to account for rising costs and more time dedicated to maintaining its efficacy. Branding on social platforms has been proven to have a lasting effect on brand awareness and brand favorability, which have a positive impact on revenue for advertisers who invest in higher-funnel tactics. If advertisers aim to maintain these results, they will need to weigh the risks of reach reduction from decreased paid social budgets. 

Should advertisers choose to stay the course with their 2025 paid social investments, brand safety strategy should move to the forefront of media plans. In-platform inventory filters on Meta have been updated to include more than Audience Network domains, and, at minimum, should be applied to all campaigns based on brand safety requirements.  

As a Meta Certified Company, Goodway Group offers strategic guidance for brands advertising on Meta platforms. In addition to this expertise, Goodway Group partnered with IAS in early 2024 to help brands amplify their brand safety tactics on social platforms. IAS’s first-to-market content filters on Meta provide robust analysis and enhanced protection beyond the limitations of in-platform settings. As an IAS partner, we offer discounted rates for our clients who invest in IAS’s reliable services for their social campaigns. With over a decade of paid social expertise, our trusted partners, and a commitment to high-quality digital campaigns, Goodway Group is well-equipped to navigate these changes in the ever-evolving space.

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About the Author:

Traci Asbury brings over a decade of industry experience excelling in marketing positions for brands and agencies alike. In her current role as Social Investment Lead, she spearheads all social media investments and efforts to excellence standards. She does this by improving and maintaining Goodway’s expertise within social buying and execution to ensure continuous improvements and a competitive advantage. With her deep knowledge and understanding of social platform buying and strategy and her wealth of experience managing social within the digital ecosystem, she knows how to leverage platforms to find success for brands of all types.