Facebook will soon begin reducing the distribution of content from accounts identified as sharing spammy material, in addition to removing those accounts’ eligibility for monetization, the company announced this week. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is also stepping up enforcement against fake engagement and impersonation on the platform as part of a broader effort to restore the network’s reputation for authentic, personal interactions.
The decision coincides with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent pledge to return Facebook to its original roots—what Zuckerberg referred to as “OG Facebook”—targeting a time when user feeds were filled with genuine posts from real connections.
Meta acknowledges that certain accounts deliberately attempt to manipulate the platform’s algorithm to boost their visibility or profit unfairly. These tactics, according to the company, negatively affect users by polluting their feeds with spam. Facebook now plans to actively suppress such abusive behaviors, including excessive hashtag usage, misleading captions that don’t correspond to images or videos, and coordinated but disingenuous sharing of content across large networks of profiles.
While Meta indicated that some individuals involved may not intend harm, the overall impact of these practices is detrimental, overshadowing original creators’ quality posts. To tackle these spam networks more effectively, Facebook will penalize accounts and networks involved in such patterns by both markedly reducing their reach and stripping away monetization capabilities.
Further, explicit steps are being introduced to address fake engagement. Facebook intends to reduce the visibility of comments detected as artificially generated. To bolster this approach, the company is experimenting with new tools enabling users to label certain comments as irrelevant or out of place, helping signal potential spam or manipulation.
Additionally, Meta announced updates to its comment moderation tools, aiming to identify and automatically conceal replies from people suspected of using fake identities to mislead or manipulate discussion threads. Creators will also have a more streamlined process for reporting impersonators within comment sections.
This announcement follows closely on the heels of recent changes like Facebook’s revamped “Friends” tab, launched a few weeks ago. Designed to showcase only posts from users’ direct connections—without algorithmically recommended content—it reflects Meta’s renewed focus on presenting users with content they actively seek out.
Zuckerberg’s push toward reintroducing the core elements of Facebook comes amid surfaced internal communications from 2022, revealing concerns from Zuckerberg himself over the social platform’s declining cultural relevance. With these new measures, Meta hopes to re-establish Facebook as a hub for authentic sharing and community engagement, reminiscent of its earlier days.
