Meta’s Free-Speech Shift Made It Clear to Advertisers: ‘Brand Safety’ Is Out of Vogue

When Meta Platforms META 0.32%increase; green up pointing triangle Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg unveiled sweeping changes this month to loosen the company’s restrictions on speech, he talked about how the “legacy media have pushed to censor” content, how the recent election was a “cultural tipping point,” and how fact-checkers “destroyed more trust than they’ve created.”

Meta executives had a very different emphasis in a Jan. 17 call with advertisers. They focused on the steps brands can take to keep their ads from appearing near content they deem out of bounds, whether it is misinformation or offensive speech. “In terms of brand safety, we are 100% committed,” Meta ad executive Samantha Stetson told the advertisers, according to a recording.