WASHINGTON, United States: Violent threats against US lawmakers on Facebook surged after Meta loosened key content moderation policies last year, according to a new report from the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
The watchdog analyzed nearly eight million Facebook comments targeting 100 members of Congress during the six months before and after Meta changed its safeguards, changes the company said were intended to protect free speech.
CCDH found that violent threats against lawmakers from both major political parties, including calls for murder, quadrupled after the policy shift. Harassment more than doubled, while racist and gender-based abuse also increased on the platform.
The report said comments encouraging violence against President Donald Trump rose as well, including one post saying he “deserves a bullet through his head.”
“When platforms stop enforcing their own rules against threats, hate, and harassment, they become complicit in normalizing intimidation and harassment of elected officials,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive of CCDH. “The result is a culture where violence feels easier to justify and radicals feel empowered.”
In a statement, a Meta spokesman said the company regularly publishes reports on “violating content” across its platforms and that “the prevalence of hateful conduct did not increase throughout 2025.”
Meta said AFP had shared CCDH’s report with the company, but the spokesman added: “We cannot address the claims in this report as we were not provided it in advance of publication.”
In recent years, politicians and election officials across the United States have reported rising threats, intimidation and harassment.
Minnesota state legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot and killed in a politically motivated attack last year. In April, a shooting disrupted the White House correspondents dinner attended by Trump, who was evacuated from the Washington Hilton hotel, one of several similar incidents.
“When companies reduce oversight in areas like violence, hate, and harassment, it should not be any surprise to see those harms increase,” Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah said in a statement to CCDH.
“Similarly, the reported surge in abusive and threatening content directed at public officials is deeply concerning, particularly in light of recent events,” Curtis added.
The CCDH report follows Meta’s January 2025 decision to end its use of US fact-checkers and replace them with a user-driven “Community Notes” model popularized by Elon Musk’s platform X.
The move was widely interpreted as an effort to satisfy President Trump’s administration, whose conservative supporters have long argued that fact-checking on technology platforms restricts free speech and targets right-wing content.
Meta also rolled back speech restrictions related to gender and sexual identity, drawing criticism from advocacy groups.
The International Fact-Checking Network has previously warned of severe consequences if Meta expands its fact-checking policy changes beyond the United States to programs operating in more than 100 countries.
AFP currently works in 26 languages with Meta’s fact-checking program, including in Asia, Latin America and the European Union.