(A version of) The Truth is Out There

Last week Mark Zuckerberg announced the abolishment of third-party fact checkers on Meta platforms in the US.

Since then, news outlets have decried the move, with one article by the Age boldly stating in its headline, “Zuckerberg has turbo-boosted enshittification”. Meta has become such substantial part of our everyday lives that any move made by the social media giant is met with a great amount of sound and fury. For example, when Facebook and Instagram crash, concerned citizens regularly call the police to report it as a crime. There have even been suggestions that this could be the death of social media and references to the “dead internet theory”. But we’re not panicking… social media isn’t going anywhere. It will continue to evolve, and the market will decide what platforms they want to use.

This policy change does hint at a monumental cultural shift in how we perceive truth. Zuckerberg, on the most recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast, calmly explained for nearly 3 hours that he wants to veer away from ideology-based influence, favouring a peer-reviewed style of fact checking, putting the power back in the hands of the users, instead of trying to police each piece of content or opinion.

He made some good points. No one body or organisation should be at the helm of deciding what is true or factual- that is taking us into 1984 territory. Also, the sheer volume of content being uploaded to the platforms daily means any organised effort by third parties to review and execute fact checking within an acceptable level of accuracy is problematic. Looking at the current political landscape, one could argue that fact checkers haven’t made a huge difference anyway. Confidence in the news media, generally speaking, is low and people are increasingly getting information from their own echo-chambers. Even from a promotions perspective, campaigns now evolve and improve upon past performance the longer they are running, learning from experience and curating specific audiences for each ad using AI.

The timing of this announcement at the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidency hasn’t been lost on anyone, especially in combination with the support shown by Zuckerberg donating $1 million to his inauguration fund. The impending Tiktok ban in the US will also shake things up, depending on whether a sale takes place. However, with the rise of right-wing governments, the separation of political influence over the content of social media is more important than ever. The people need to have the power to share their opinions, and that is what social media is for. That, and ads.

So how does this affect our approach to social media? Now, more than ever, we must celebrate the importance of creativity, in order to offset the inevitable increase in cynicism and division on these platforms. The power of ideas, and the creative, effective expression of those ideas, remain the most potent weapons any brand can have.

Powerful, simple, beautiful work will rise above and cut through the noise.

We also need to be careful about which influencers we are choosing to represent our clients and make sure their ideologies align with that of the brand’s. Influencers will benefit from being freer to say what they like without being fact-checked, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for deliberately misleading their fan base or disrespecting a business arrangement with their sponsors. Cancel culture is alive and well, so content creators will need to be careful with their messaging to ensure it aligns with their fans’ perception of who they are. From a content creation perspective, a recognisable brand, style, and tone of voice is more important than ever in order to effectively insert our messaging amongst the curated newsfeeds of our audience.

Of course, there will always be facts that are simply true no matter how many people disagree with them. The “truth” in question here is more political based than information provided by science or education. Where the waters get murky is when politics and science collide, for example with climate change or vaccines. The onus is on us as individuals to be able to tell the difference between a fact, and an idea, and an event. We need to restore respect for professionals such as scientists, whose jobs are to find the truth and report on it without bias or influence. Critical thinking, taught as a skill, has never been more important. Like journalism, truth in advertising has always been policed, with regulatory bodies governing what we say on behalf of the brands we manage, even to the extent of what individual users say about products and services we are advertising. Now that the power is being given back to the people to call out BS, we need to pay more attention to source of information and what possible motives might be at play.

The combination of the rise of AI and the erosion of trust in traditional sources of information feels like a cultural tipping point that could lead to disastrous consequences for democracy and peace, but perhaps it’s an opportunity for us as a society to actively seek out a truth that we and our peers can agree on. Tribes will form and conflict will arise, but through agitation, progress can be made. Safe to say, 2025 is going to be an interesting year.

Now is the perfect time to review your social media strategy and make sure your budget aligns with where your sales and leads are occurring. Meta often gets the lion’s share of the promotional budget due to its size, but perhaps some of that money could be more effectively spent elsewhere? There are plenty of alternative platforms to consider, and a well thought-out strategy with platform-native content can help take your brand’s social media presence to the next level. We are currently working with all of our social media clients to review strategies in light of the above to make the most of the opportunities in 2025. Please reach out of if you’d like to have a chat with us about the changing social media landscape and what it means for your brand.