Social media news we have our eye on

Social media news posts are hard to write, especially in today’s climate, because social media news IS the news and things change quickly. It’s hard not to get political about this post when almost every story below is a short step away from a political landmine. There are enough examples of Supreme Court cases, presidential pandering and “eat the rich” storylines below, you’d think we were giving you the plot of a new Netflix drama. But alas, this is real life. Here are the four social media trends we’ve got our eyes on moving into 2025.

Meta Drops Fact Check for Community Notes-Like Feature

Content moderation on Meta platforms is going to get interesting. Mark Zuckerburg announced earlier this month that Meta was shutting down its fact-checking program in lieu of a community notes feature (similar to what X has in place). This change impacts Facebook, Instagram and Threads. Coincidentally (or not, I’ll let you decide), the Democratic National Committee has hired KamalaHQ’s social team to run a campaign called @FactPostNews to combat misinformation specifically related to the Trump administration. Content will be pushed out on X, Threads and Bluesky, with plans to eventually move to TikTok (maybe, see below), Facebook and Instagram.

Yet Another Alternative to Twitter (X)

Speaking of….did you like Twitter/X/Threads? Then we have yet another platform for you to consider. Bluesky is a spinoff of Twitter and was originally a Twitter initiative launched by Jack Dorsey in 2019. By 2021, it was incorporated and segmented off of the mothership into its own thing. While it became accessible to the public in early 2024, it experienced significant growth after the election, crossing 26.5 million users at the start of 2025. One of the key messages that has been echoed in several media hits is “billionaire proof,” where CEO Jay Graber is hoping to build a platform that avoids what happened to Twitter after the Musk takeover. As of now, we haven’t done much more than poke around Bluesky.

TikTok Ban (Appears to be) Happening

By the time you read this, this news probably has an update. But at the time of publishing, all the headlines are pointing to TikTok being banned by the Supreme Court on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. The two big legal rules at play here revolve around the government and media companies (aka free press) and communication ownership by foreign nationals – the latter of which is the one Vox thinks carries the most weight here. Also at play here is the almighty algorithm, which NBC News reports is a separate entity than the platform itself and wouldn’t necessarily come with a potential sale of the U.S. operations. That means even if Mr. Wonderful purchases the platform and makes the algorithmic changes he proposes, it means rebuilding something new – so would it even be TikTok after all is said and done?

Meta’s Changes to Allowable Content around LGBTQ and Immigration

We’re starting the new year with a multitude of corporations nixing their DEI programs, and Meta is one of them. Going back to all those policy changes Zuckerburg announced at the top of the year, the one that has generated the most startling headlines is changes to Meta’s Hateful Conduct policy. We’ll include the language update verbatim of what allowable content can include:

“…allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’”

Meaning you can accuse someone who is LGTBQ as having mental illness. Wired has a list of these policy changes, which also include removing protections around race, ethnicity and gender-connected content and removing a line about offline violence in connection with social media.

Casey Prentice

A self-proclaimed organizational junkie and data geek who confesses to a secret desire to be a professional organizer, Casey enjoys account management, writing, editing and digital content strategy. Her agency work has helped clients like Virginia’s Community Colleges, VCUarts and Swedish Match.

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