Meta intensifies its crackdown on unoriginal Facebook content, penalizing copy-paste creators and reinforcing its push for authentic, high-quality user engagement.
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| Meta targets accounts reposting others’ work without originality on Facebook, introducing stricter penalties to support content quality and creator transparency. Image: CH |
SAN FRANCISCO, USA — July 15, 2025:
Meta has launched a major initiative to combat the spread of unoriginal content on Facebook, escalating its efforts to protect authentic creators and improve user experience. The company announced on Monday that it has already removed nearly 10 million accounts this year impersonating popular content creators, with another 500,000 accounts penalized for spam-like behavior or generating fake engagement. These repeat offenders now face reduced reach and a ban from Facebook’s monetization programs, with potential full distribution loss for persistent violations.
This bold move follows closely behind YouTube’s own measures to curb AI-generated and reused content, underscoring the growing alarm among major platforms over the surge of low-effort “AI slop” — often stitched-together clips or voiceovers produced by generative tools. While Meta’s policy doesn’t directly mention AI, the company strongly discourages the use of recycled media with minimal edits or artificial overlays, encouraging creators to focus on authentic storytelling and original content.
Meta emphasized that this policy is not designed to penalize creative participation in trends or commentary-based content. Instead, it will primarily affect accounts reposting videos, photos, or text from others without adding substantive value or giving proper credit. To further protect originality, Facebook will begin demoting duplicate videos in user feeds and is testing a new feature that links reposts directly to the original version.
In response to longstanding criticism over opaque content moderation systems—particularly on Instagram—Meta is also introducing post-level insights via the Professional Dashboard. This tool allows creators to monitor content performance and understand when and why penalties are applied.
As part of its ongoing transparency efforts, Meta reported that fake accounts still make up about 3% of Facebook’s global monthly active users. Between January and March 2025 alone, the platform took action against over one billion fake profiles. The company is now piloting a U.S.-based Community Notes system, modeled after X (formerly Twitter), enabling users to flag or verify content based on community standards and factual accuracy.
The social media giant’s renewed push for content authenticity comes amid mounting pressure from both users and advertisers for better content quality, especially as AI-generated media continues to flood digital spaces. By prioritizing original creators and discouraging mass duplication, Meta is positioning itself as a gatekeeper of trust and creativity in the age of generative content.
The rollout of these stricter enforcement measures will be gradual, giving users time to adjust. But the message from Meta is clear: the era of copy-paste content dominance is over, and originality is once again the currency of value on Facebook.