After making some radical changes to Meta’s apps, Mark Zuckerberg seems to be paying the price, as users participate in a Meta boycott.
On Jan. 7, the tech giant announced that Meta was eschewing third-party fact-checkers in favor of a user-ran Community Notes feature. He also said that Meta will be rolling back its content moderation on contentious topics and no longer downrank political content.
All of this, seemingly, is in the name of free speech. But there are plenty of Meta users that don’t agree.
Users Are Participating in a Meta Boycott
As reported by NBC News, numerous creators are boycotting Meta’s apps, which include Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp. The outlet claims that it has seen “hundreds of posts” across different social media platforms in which users claim they are quitting various Meta apps.
Marie Valencia, an artist with over 200,000 collective followers, told NBC that she’s leaving because she “no longer feels safe” on these apps as a queer woman of color. Similarly, director Cord Jefferson said in an Instagram post that he is leaving Mets-owned platforms because “things are getting bleaker and grosser by the day.”
As previously reported, Google searches related to deleting Facebook and Instagram have skyrocketed, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
We might be seeing an exodus comparable to what X experienced after Elon Musk’s takeover. That may not be a precedent Meta wants to follow. On the other hand, the exodus of users from X has helped Musk create a platform that better reflects his ideals in the world.
Do Meta’s moderation changes reflect its views, or is it simply a way to gain favor with the new administration? We’ll see how they react to the user backlash going forward.
