Has Facebook Stopped Trying?

This was an important moment not just for X, but for other social media companies, too. In order for Meta’s platforms to be seen as a safer alternative for advertisers, Zuckerberg had to meet the extremely low bar of “not overtly platforming Nazis” and “didn’t tell advertisers to ‘go fuck yourself.’”

UCLA’s [Sarah T.] Roberts has always argued that content moderation is about keeping platforms that make almost all of their money on advertising “brand safe” for those advertisers, not about keeping their users “safe” or censoring content. Musk’s apology tour has highlighted Roberts’s point that content moderation is for advertisers, not users.

“After he said ‘Go fuck yourself,’ Meta can just kind of sit back and let the ball roll downhill toward Musk,” Roberts said. “And any backlash there has been to those brands or to X has been very fleeting. Companies keep coming back and are advertising on all of these sites, so there have been no consequences.”