Advertisers Aren’t Thrilled With Zuckerberg’s Embrace Of Hate Speech

After years of Meta insisting its content moderation was essential for platform health, Zuckerberg’s sudden embrace of fake “free speech” is having exactly the consequences anyone paying attention would expect. Just as advertisers fled ExTwitter when Musk decided “brand safety” was for wimps, Meta’s advertisers are getting nervous about their own brands being associated with whatever bigoted “edgy” content Zuck now thinks deserves his personal protection. For all the ideological posturing about “free speech,” it turns out advertisers have a simple calculus: they’d rather not pay to have their ads appear next to hate speech.

The ExTwitter saga offers a preview of what happens when platforms prioritize provocative content over brand safety. Elon had driven away nearly half of Twitter’s advertisers within the first few months and then continued to drive them away in droves ever since. It probably didn’t help that Elon told advertisers to go fuck themselves and then sued some other advertisers as well.

While Musk’s spectacular alienation of advertisers might seem like a unique case, Meta is now facing similar scrutiny after Zuckerberg caved to Trump’s demands on moderation. The question now is whether Meta will face a similar advertising exodus.

Admittedly, Meta’s calculation reflects more finesse than Musk’s scorched-earth approach. With Facebook and Instagram’s unmatched reach and proven ROI, Zuckerberg seems to be betting that his platforms are simply too valuable for advertisers to abandon—a high-stakes gamble that assumes brand safety concerns won’t outweigh market reach. And even as he’s trying to cosplay as the cool meme kid on podcasts, he doesn’t quite have that true “go fuck yourself” spirit that Elon gives off.

However, as the WSJ recently detailed, advertisers are rethinking their Meta ad spend. Again, it’s not because of ideological disagreements. It’s that they know that advertising in the proverbial Nazi bar isn’t exactly good for the brand. Just as a bar that tolerates Nazis soon becomes a Nazi bar, a platform that embraces “controversial” content risks becoming defined by its most extreme voices.

Advertisers have expressed concerns over the past few weeks—in meetings with Meta as well as with their own agency partners—that Meta’s tools might not be enough to stop ads from showing up near offensive content as the new content-moderation approach comes into effect, and that user feeds could become inundated with misinformation.

On the recent call, Meta’s vice president of content policy, Monika Bickert, said Meta wants to remove content that contributes to increased safety risks, but “allow people to talk about the news and the world around them and not be overly restrictive.” One significant change: “Hate speech,” a term that she said “has different meanings to different people,” is being replaced by “hateful conduct.” 

And, look, for years Techdirt has pointed out the challenges of defining “hate speech” in a manner that isn’t abused to suppress certain kinds of important speech (often speaking out against those in power). But, advertisers aren’t that concerned with that level of nuance. They’re not advertising to support a debate over racism. They just don’t want to have their brand look terrible.

Brand safety “has become politicized and it was never motivated by politics,” said Brad Jakeman, a former marketer at PepsiCo. The movement around brand safety happened because “we heard from our consumers that they felt uncomfortable with our brands being connected to content that they found offensive,” he said.

Of course, the article also points out that a lot of companies are being much quieter about their plans this time around. They’ve already seen how the likes of Jim Jordan will weaponize the government against any attempt to not advertise on his favored websites—a particularly rich irony coming from a politician who regularly rails against “the weaponization of the government” to suppress speech.

Ad executives say they are wary of putting a target on their backs by speaking up about brand safety, and some agencies are now reluctant to send clients “point-of-view” memos on the topic when online controversies arise.

“Brand safety is under attack at a time when it’s needed more than ever before,” given the huge audiences for platforms like Instagram and X and their more hands-off approach to monitoring posts, said Doug Rozen, former CEO of ad giant Dentsu’s media-buying unit in the U.S. 

The message between the lines is clear: advertisers may be quieter about their exodus this time, but that doesn’t make it any less real. They’re simply choosing to vote with their dollars rather than their voices.

Even if their ads don’t run directly alongside objectionable content, some advertisers are concerned that the changes could lead to an explosion of toxic or misleading posts on Meta’s platforms, making the general environment less suitable for ads. In addition to paid ads, many advertisers publish organic posts on Meta platforms. Some are asking Meta to provide tools so those posts can also avoid controversial content.

The reality is that content moderation was never just about political correctness or censorship—it was about creating sustainable platforms where both users and advertisers felt comfortable participating. Meta may be about to learn this lesson the hard way.