CALIFORNIA, Md. — Meta announced a series of changes on Jan. 7 aimed at reducing content moderation mistakes and enhancing free expression across its platforms. Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan outlined the updates, emphasizing a renewed commitment to open dialogue and transparency.
In a 2019 speech, CEO Mark Zuckerberg argued that free expression drives societal progress but warned against stifling speech in pursuit of political outcomes. This perspective remains central to the company’s policy shift. Kaplan acknowledged that Meta’s current content moderation systems have become overly restrictive, often censoring harmless content and frustrating users. “Too much harmless content gets censored,” Kaplan said, referring to instances where users are mistakenly penalized.
Transitioning to Community Notes
Meta is discontinuing its third-party fact-checking program in the United States and adopting a “Community Notes” system inspired by X (formerly Twitter). The new approach will rely on diverse community input to flag misleading posts and provide additional context.
Community Notes will be written and rated by users, with agreement required across varied perspectives to ensure balanced contributions. Meta plans to phase in the program over the coming months, starting in the U.S. Users can sign up on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads to participate as contributors. During this transition, the company will remove intrusive fact-checking labels and reduce demotions of flagged content.
Reducing Over-Enforcement
Meta is addressing over-enforcement of its policies, which Kaplan attributed to the complexity of its automated systems. In December 2024, the company removed millions of posts daily, with up to 20% of these actions potentially being mistakes. Meta aims to increase transparency by regularly reporting enforcement errors, particularly in cases of spam.
The company plans to focus automated enforcement on severe violations such as terrorism, child exploitation, and scams. For less severe issues, Meta will prioritize user reports over automated actions. The changes include raising the confidence threshold for content takedowns and reducing unwarranted demotions.
Meta also announced that its trust and safety teams will relocate from California to Texas and other U.S. locations, a move designed to diversify perspectives.
Enhancing Content Appeals
Meta is streamlining its appeals process to address user frustrations. The company has increased staffing for content reviews and now requires multiple reviewers to agree before removing certain posts. Additionally, Meta is testing AI-powered large language models to provide secondary opinions and facial recognition technology to simplify account recovery.
Personalized Political Content
Since 2021, Meta has limited civic content, including posts about politics and elections, following user feedback. However, the company is introducing a personalized approach to such content. Political posts will now be ranked based on user engagement signals, allowing individuals to see more relevant content from people and pages they follow. Users will also gain expanded control over the volume of political content in their feeds.
Commitment to Free Expression
Kaplan reaffirmed Meta’s dedication to its original vision of free expression, acknowledging the need for policy adjustments. “We want to undo the mission creep that has made our rules too restrictive and too prone to over-enforcement,” he said. “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms.”
Kaplan stated these policy changes may take a few weeks to be fully implemented.
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