Facebook abuse surges as Meta slashes moderation, CCDH report finds

New research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) indicates that violent threats and hate speech against US lawmakers surged on Facebook in the six months following Meta’s decision to relax its content moderation policies. The study, which analysed approximately 8 million comments, found that abusive comments targeting both Republican and Democrat representatives tripled, while violent threats quadrupled. Threats against President Donald Trump more than doubled during this period.

Meta reduced its proactive content moderation enforcement by roughly half after the policy changes. The report cites examples of gendered and racist abuse that were not removed, and experts warn that such content amplifies engagement and poses real-world safety risks to politicians.

The CCDH researchers examined 100 members of the House of Representatives, selecting 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats with the highest Facebook follower counts. They scraped nearly 8 million comments from posts made by these lawmakers in the six months before and after Meta’s policy changes. An AI system trained to identify violations in violence, hateful conduct, and bullying was used to analyse the dataset.

Violent threats against lawmakers quadrupled, rising from 1,800 in the six months before the changes to 7,600 in the six months after. Hate speech comments also quadrupled, increasing from 6,900 to 30,000. Comments breaking rules on bullying and harassment doubled, moving from 15,700 to 39,900. Specific examples of gendered and racist abuse directed at lawmakers such as Jasmine Crockett and Byron Daniels were not taken down by Meta.

The data collected by CCDH researchers is echoed in Meta’s own transparency reports from 2025, which show how the company cut its proactive content moderation enforcement by roughly half in the months following its policy changes. “The surge in abuse and the collapse in enforcement track one another almost exactly,” the report’s authors write.

Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, stated that when companies reduce oversight in areas like violence and hate, it is unsurprising that harms increase. Meta responded by noting that the prevalence of hateful conduct did not increase throughout 2025 according to their own tracking, though the company could not address the report’s claims directly without seeing the research in its entirety.

Experts argue that extremist content performs well on social media platforms by keeping users engaged and driving ad revenue. Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, described a horrifying trend of political violence, noting that lawmakers are cancelling town halls and election officials are leaving their jobs due to fear of being targeted.