Meta research

Online Domestic Extremism in Canada Data Briefing (Dec 2025-Feb 2026)

Recurring data briefing tracking violent-extremist activity across major platforms in Canada; consistently finds Telegram the leading platform for such activity.

Safety Off: threats and abuse surged after Meta's policy changes

Analysis of ~8M Facebook comments on Members of Congress found violent threats quadrupled after Meta's Jan 2025 rollback.

Scambook: How Meta helps Medicare scammers target seniors

Meta earned ~$14.3M from deceptive scam ads (including deepfakes) targeting seniors, violating its policies.

Online Hate & Harassment Targeting Public Figures and Influencers on Instagram in Jordan

Analyzes the scale and nature of hate and harassment directed at public figures and influencers on Instagram in Jordan.

Weaponising social media: smears of Indigenous leaders in Guatemala

Deregulation of major platforms is helping drive online smear campaigns and criminalisation of Guatemalan land and democracy defenders.

'Your report is important to us': unnecessary barriers to submit content reports

Analyzes how platform content-reporting mechanisms impose unnecessary barriers under the DSA.

Sexualized images on X: what we are doing to stop them and what we expect from the EU

Documented networks of X accounts openly promoting non-consensual 'nudify' tools; a reported post was deemed non-violating, and X refused a DSA Art. 40.12 data request, blocking research (context to the EU's DSA fine on X).

War profiteers: online ads and the machinery of propaganda for war

Examines how governments deploy war propaganda through online advertising and argues platforms bear responsibility under international human rights law to prevent monetizing it.

Malicious semi-compliance as the platform approach to EU regulation

Argues big tech feigns compliance with the DSA while sidestepping its intent through 'malicious semi-compliance.'

Hate for Sale: Instagram helps sellers of hateful merchandise

Instagram and e-commerce platforms amplify and monetize racist/antisemitic 'hate merch,' reaching a billion views.

AI Generated Algorithmic Virality (AI Slop)

Across three European countries, 25% of TikTok's top search results contained synthetic AI imagery (80%+ from 'Agentic AI Accounts'); only about half of AI content was properly labeled despite DSA commitments.

App Stores & Meta's Porn: An Uncomfortable Affair

In Spring 2025 Meta approved 12,034+ pornographic ads, shown 12.8M times across all 27 EU countries, apparently violating store and Meta policies; the same images were auto-moderated when posted as normal Instagram posts.

Meta's Failing Ad Moderation: Health Scams Targeting EU Users

Identified 46,000+ ads promoting unapproved drugs and deceptive health claims, reaching EU users 292M+ times, violating Meta's own standards and potentially several DSA provisions.

More Transparency and Less Spin: Analyzing Meta's policy changes

Meta's 2025 policy rollback could stop 97% of enforcement in key areas including hate speech.

Influence by Design: How Meta Accepted Russian Propaganda Payments Despite Sanctions

With Reset.tech and AI Forensics, revealed Meta ran 8,000+ pro-Russian ads tied to the sanctioned Social Design Agency, earning ~$338,000 between Aug 2023-Oct 2024 despite sanctions.

Statement on Meta's Announcement to Gut Moderation and Fact-checking

Argues Meta's end of third-party fact-checking and relocation of moderation teams will increase harm and disinformation; assesses the Commission's limited DSA options.

Pay-to-Play: Meta's Community (double) Standards on Pornographic Ads

3,000+ pornographic ads (including AI-generated media and celebrity deepfakes) were approved and generated 8M+ EU impressions, content that would be removed if posted by regular users.

The 2025 RDR Index: Big Tech Edition

Seventh edition (first full evaluation since 2022): no company scored over 50%; TikTok debuted strongly while X showed RDR's largest-ever single-company decline after cutting its human rights team and transparency reporting.

Toxic platforms, broken planet: Online abuse of environmental defenders

Of 204 land/environmental defenders surveyed, 92% had experienced online abuse or harassment tied to their work, with real-world safety and silencing effects.

Meta's Role in Romania's 2024 Presidential Election

With Reset Tech and EU DisinfoLab, examined Meta's advertising and its influence on public opinion during Romania's pivotal 2024 presidential vote.

Rainbow-burning: how social media companies increase risks for LGBTQ+ people in Africa

Documented 214 threatening anti-LGBTQ+ posts across the platforms in five African countries; only 51 were removed when reported, blaming under-resourced moderation for African languages and engagement-driven algorithms.

Doppelganger media impersonation: leveraging domain name dispute resolution

Explores using domain-name dispute resolution as a countermeasure against the Doppelganger media-impersonation operation.

Independent Audit of Facebook's DSA Risk Assessment

Independent audit examining Facebook's systemic-risk assessment under the EU Digital Services Act (period 29 Aug 2023-30 June 2024).

Facebook's AI Failure

AI-generated images of fake Americans making political endorsements got millions of interactions before the US election.

TikTok and Facebook fail to detect harmful disinformation ads (US election)

Weeks before the US presidential election, TikTok approved 50% of disinformation ads and Facebook accepted one; YouTube approved 50% initially but blocked publication pending ID verification.

How Meta Brings in Millions Off Political Violence

A joint CalMatters/Markup investigation estimated Meta earns millions in ad revenue in the wake of violent news events, profiting from engagement surges around political violence.

US Election Platform Preparedness: Comparative Analysis

Assessed platforms across six areas ahead of the 2024 US election; the most alarming common finding was a pervasive lack of transparency about policies, safety efforts and resourcing.

Abusing Women in Politics: How Instagram is failing women

Instagram failed to act on 93% of reported abusive comments (including death/rape threats) targeting US women politicians.

Public Data Access Programs: A First Look

First systematic evaluation of 19 platforms' researcher data-access programs; access varies widely and data quality is poor.

Digital Apartheid in Gaza: Unjust Content Moderation (2-part series)

Documents how platforms, especially Meta (reportedly ~94% compliance with Israeli Cyber Unit takedown requests), disproportionately removed pro-Palestinian content while failing to curb anti-Palestinian hate.

Yet more evidence of Russia's boundless impunity to spread misinformation in the EU

Further documentation of the Doppelganger influence operation's continued reach across social platforms in the EU.

Meta's elections dashboard: A very disappointing sign

Technical critique of Meta's EU election-monitoring dashboard: keyword lists mis-copied across countries, Instagram lacking location filters, and Facebook filters cutting ~50% of relevant material, calling it a 'PR distraction.'

Unchecked Political Ads: Pro-Russian Propaganda on Meta Ahead of EU Elections

Between May 1-27 2024, Meta approved at least 275 pro-Russian propaganda ads (lacking required disclaimers) targeting Italy, Germany, France and Poland, reaching over 3 million accounts.

Antisemitic Admins: Meta's failure to moderate large Facebook Groups

Meta failed to act on admins spreading anti-Jewish hate to 300K+ Facebook Group members.

Confusing Google predictions and unbalanced politics on TikTok and Instagram

CrossOver Finland analysis found politically unbalanced content on TikTok and Instagram alongside confusing Google search predictions ahead of the 2024 elections.

Assessing cost-effectiveness: responses to the Doppelganger operation

Assesses responses to the Russian Doppelganger operation that clones media outlets and spreads links/ads across X, Facebook and Telegram.

Shrinking democracy, growing violence: Internet shutdowns in 2023

Annual #KeepItOn documentation of shutdowns and platform blocking worldwide in 2023, tying disruptions to elections, protests and conflict.

No Embargo In Sight: Meta Lets Pro-Russia Propaganda Ads Flood the EU

A moderation loophole let pro-Russian propaganda run on Meta; under 5% of undeclared political ads were caught, and one campaign reached 38M+ users in France and Germany. The European Commission opened proceedings citing this report.

Full Disclosure: Stress Testing Tech Platforms' Ad Repositories

With CheckFirst: tested ad-transparency tools of 11 companies; none rated 'ready,' with major data gaps and inaccuracies.

Mozilla commissions CheckFirst to conduct a stress test of Ad Repositories

First comprehensive report on DSA-strengthened platform ad libraries, finding the ad transparency tools failing to meet their intended purpose.

Digital Disparities: the global battle for reproductive rights on social media

Meta restricts reproductive-care information in Africa/Asia/Latin America while allowing anti-choice misinformation ads.

Instagram Creators: Check If Your Posts Are 'Political'

After Meta stopped 'proactively recommending' political content, The Markup built a tool letting creators test whether their posts would be classified as political and thus algorithmically limited.

How Automated Content Moderation Works (Even When It Doesn't)

Explainer documenting the automated techniques (hash-matching, classifiers) platforms use to moderate billions of posts, and where these systems routinely fail.

Safe by Default (People vs Big Tech briefing)

Argues engagement-based recommender systems amplifying borderline content is a feature not a bug; calls on regulators to require non-profiling feeds as the default.

Platforms, Promises and Politics: a reality check on election pledges

Finds platforms' election interventions in the Global Majority are template-copied and far weaker than those offered in the US/EU.

Demoted, Deleted, and Denied: More Than Just Shadowbanning on Instagram

An investigation found Instagram heavily demoted nongraphic Israel-Hamas war images, deleted captions, hid comments without notification, and suppressed hashtags, well beyond classic 'shadowbanning.'

It's not a glitch: how Meta systematically censors Palestinian voices

Documents systematic censorship of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian content since October 7, 2023, driven by Meta's vague 'Dangerous Organizations' policy and discriminatory enforcement (e.g., lowering the hide-threshold to 25%).

Each Facebook User is Monitored by Thousands of Companies

A study of 267,000 users found the average Facebook user had activity sent to Facebook by roughly 2,230 different companies, exposing the scale of third-party tracking.

Disinformation on Facebook: research and content moderation policies

Factsheet documenting how disinformation on Facebook is researched and how the platform's content-moderation policies operate.

Algorithms of Trauma 2: 'Anxious about your health? Facebook won't let you forget'

Case study showing Facebook's ad-delivery algorithms push distressing health/illness ads exploiting users' mental vulnerabilities; disabling 'sensitive interests' limits advertiser targeting but not Facebook's own profiling.

Violent and sexualised hate speech targeting women journalists (South Africa)

Nearly all 40 misogynistic test ads (in 4 languages) were approved; Meta and TikTok approved all 40 within 24 hours. Concludes automated moderation is 'not fit for purpose.'

Facebook Watches Teens Online As They Prep for College

A Pixel Hunt investigation found Meta's tracking pixel embedded on school, test-prep and college-application websites, letting Meta monitor students as they browse education sites.

Not a solution: Meta's new AI system to contain discriminatory ads

Meta's 'Variance Reduction System' for biased US housing-ad delivery is 'more band-aid than AI fairness solution'; reporting gaps make it impossible to verify.

Platforms' policies on climate change misinformation (V1)

Maps how the five platforms address climate misinformation, revealing uneven and weak climate-specific rules.

A world of online hate and lies: Mapping our investigations

A synthesis of 10+ country investigations concluding platforms systematically fail to enforce their own hate-speech/disinformation ad policies, with weaker moderation outside the US.

Social media algorithms are harmless, or are they?

Critiques the Meta-partnered 2020-election studies, arguing behavioral data showed the algorithms increased uncivil-content exposure, removed cross-cutting content, and boosted time-on-platform.

Facebook Hustles: The Belgian spin-off

Deep-dive into a scam network of 1,500+ Facebook ads luring users to fake media sites impersonating Belgian outlets and politicians.

Platforms' policies on elections misinformation

Maps and compares how five major platforms address election misinformation in their policies.

Platforms' policies on health misinformation

Maps and compares how five major platforms address health misinformation in their policies.

Facebook Hustles: The Hidden Mechanics of a Scam Machinery

A month-long investigation uncovered a large-scale scam operation recruiting victims via 1,500+ Facebook ads and fake media sites impersonating news outlets/creators.

'We need to kill them': Xenophobic hate speech approved by Facebook, TikTok and YouTube (South Africa)

Violent xenophobic test ads were approved by all three platforms; nearly every ad passed, with only one Facebook rejection.

Reels of Fortune: Instagram-shaped memories for a bigger reach

Qualitative story on how Instagram's pivot to Reels/video pushes users to curate memories 'for the algorithm,' generating training data that teaches the platform to rank memories automatically.

Horizon Worlds Exposed

Minors were routinely harassed and exposed to adult content in Meta's flagship VR social network.

Extreme and violent anti-LGBTQ+ hate approved for publication by leading social media platforms

Test ads with extreme anti-LGBTQ+ hate were almost all approved: YouTube and TikTok approved all 10 ads, Facebook rejected only two, and all three approved the 'burn all gays' ad.