Meta introduced on Monday that it’s going to take extra measures to crack down on accounts sharing “unoriginal” content material to Fb, which means people who repeatedly reuse another person’s textual content, images, or movies. This yr, Meta has already taken down round 10 million profiles that had been impersonating massive content material creators, it mentioned.
Plus, it has taken motion in opposition to 500,000 accounts that had been engaged in “spammy habits or faux engagement.” These actions have included issues like demoting the accounts’ feedback and decreasing the distribution of their content material to stop the accounts from monetizing.
The replace from Meta follows solely days after YouTube mentioned it was additionally clarifying its coverage round unoriginal content material, together with mass-produced and repetitive movies — issues which have turn into simpler to generate with the assistance of AI know-how.
Like YouTube, Meta says it received’t penalize customers who’re participating with different individuals’s content material, doing issues like making response movies, becoming a member of a pattern, or including their very own takes. As a substitute, Meta’s focus is on the reposting of others’ content material, both on spam accounts or people who fake to belong to the unique creator.
Accounts that abuse the system by repeatedly reusing another person’s content material will lose entry to Fb monetization applications for a time frame and see diminished distribution of their posts, the corporate mentioned. When Fb detects duplicate movies, it’s going to additionally cut back the distribution of the copies to make sure the unique creator will get the views and credit score.
As well as, the corporate mentioned it’s testing a system that provides hyperlinks on duplicate movies that time viewers to the unique content material.
The replace arrives as Meta weathers criticism from customers throughout its platforms, together with Instagram, about misguided, over-enforcement of its insurance policies via automated means. A petition with almost 30,000 signatures asks Meta to repair the problem with wrongfully disabled accounts and its lack of human help, which has customers feeling deserted and has damage many small companies. Meta has not but publicly addressed the problem, regardless of consideration from press and different high-profile creators.
Whereas Meta’s latest crackdown is concentrated extra on accounts that steal others’ content material for revenue, points round unoriginal content material are rising.
With the rise of AI know-how, platforms have turn into flooded with AI slop, a time period referencing low-quality media content material made utilizing generative AI. On YouTube, as an example, it’s simple to discover an AI voice overlaid on images, video clips, or different repurposed content material, because of text-to-video AI instruments.
Meta’s replace seemingly solely focuses on reused content material, however its put up means that it could be taking AI slop into consideration, too. In a bit the place the corporate gives “ideas” for making unique content material, Meta notes that creators shouldn’t simply be “stitching collectively clips” or including their watermark when utilizing content material from different sources, and they need to concentrate on “genuine storytelling,” not brief movies providing little worth.
With out immediately saying so, some of these unoriginal movies are additionally issues that AI instruments have made it simpler to supply, as low-quality movies will usually function a collection of simply photos or clips (both actual or AI), with added AI narration.
Within the put up, Meta additionally warns creators to not reuse content material from different apps or sources, which has been a longstanding rule. It additionally notes that video captions must be top quality, which may imply reducing down on using automated AI captions that aren’t edited by the creator.
Meta says these adjustments will roll out progressively over the months forward, so Fb creators have time to regulate. If creators suppose their content material isn’t being distributed, they will view the brand new post-level insights in Fb’s Skilled Dashboard to see why.
Creators may even have the ability to see in the event that they’re susceptible to content material advice or monetization penalties within the Assist house display screen from their Web page or skilled profile’s major menu.
Meta sometimes shares details about its content material takedowns in its quarterly Transparency Reviews. Within the final quarter, Meta mentioned that 3% of its worldwide month-to-month energetic customers on Fb had been faux accounts, and it had taken motion on 1 billion faux accounts from January via March 2025.
Extra lately, Meta has backed away from fact-checking content material itself in favor of Group Notes within the U.S., just like X, which permits customers and contributors to find out if posts comply with Meta’s Group Requirements and are correct.
