"Trumpisation" of Meta / Facebook
TL;DR
Stefania Di Stefano, writing for OpenGlobalRights, critiques Meta's 2025 policy shift under Mark Zuckerberg, arguing that the company's move to "prioritize speech" over content moderation undermines its human rights commitments. Meta has weakened protections against hate speech, raised the threshold for content removal, and relaxed restrictions on discriminatory language, particularly against women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and immigrants. The shift, framed as a return to "free speech," mirrors past failures in moderating harmful content, such as its role in the Rohingya genocide. Di Stefano warns that this deregulation threatens online safety and violates international human rights standards.
In her article for OpenGlobalRights, Stefania Di Stefano examines Meta's 2025 shift in content moderation, which weakens its human rights commitments. While Meta previously implemented a Corporate Human Rights Policy (2021) aligned with UN principles, Zuckerberg's January 2025 update reverses this progress.
The new policy aims to "restore free expression" by:
- Replacing fact-checkers with "community notes," similar to Musk's X (Twitter).
- Raising the threshold for content removal makes it harder to moderate harmful speech.
- Moving Trust & Safety teams to Texas, where oversight is weaker.
- Reintroducing political content despite concerns about misinformation.
- Aligning with Trump to push back against digital regulations.
Meta's "simplified" hate speech rules now permit more offensive language, including calls for exclusion based on gender, sexual orientation, and national origin. The new Hateful Conduct Community Standard explicitly allows language labeling LGBTQ+ individuals as "mentally abnormal" and endorses sex-based exclusions from spaces like bathrooms and sports.
Di Stefano warns that these changes echo Meta's past failures, particularly its role in fueling violence in Myanmar (Rohingya crisis). The loosening of hate speech policies contradicts both Meta's human rights commitments and international law, which permits restrictions on speech to prevent discrimination and violence.
Additionally, Meta opposes EU regulations like the Digital Services Act (DSA), which promotes platform accountability. However, human rights law supports tech regulation, making Zuckerberg's resistance ethically problematic.
Concluding Reflections
Stefania Di Stefano argues that Meta's 2025 policy shift prioritizes "free speech" at the expense of human rights. By relaxing hate speech rules, Meta increases risks for marginalized groups and allows discrimination to become normalized. While Meta claims to be "removing unnecessary restrictions," these changes directly contradict its own human rights commitments and could contribute to real-world harm. Di Stefano warns that unless Meta recommits to human rights protections, its new "recipe" for free expression will leave users vulnerable to online and offline violence.
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