The Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in Australia has received evidence concerning Meta's content moderation policies. Meta announced in January 2025 that it would reduce censorship, eliminate fact-checkers, and proactively address only illegal and very serious violations.

Commissioner Virginia Bell requested a clear explanation for a 79% reduction in actions taken on hateful conduct, apart from the announced policy change. Richard Lancaster, counsel assisting the inquiry, stated that complaints indicated the policy changes led to an increase in antisemitic content.

Mr. Lancaster presented Meta internal advice indicating that offensive comments like "gay people are sinners" would be permitted. He also presented advice that false claims such as "immigrants are criminals" and "white people are all Nazis" are allowed. Additionally, Mr. Lancaster noted advice that the claim "Black people are more violent than whites" is acceptable, while "black people are all drug dealers" is prohibited.

Benjamin Good, Meta's global director of core policy, testified that Meta's processes had improved since the 2025 changes. He said the company now focuses on removing content that causes offline harm. Good stated that Meta uses a metric for the prevalence of hateful conduct policy violations, which has remained at 0.02% since 2022. Mr. Lancaster noted that 0.02% of hundreds of billions of pieces of content represents a large number in absolute terms.

The inquiry was shown graphs that indicated a decrease in the volume of hateful conduct on which Meta had taken action. Good testified that Meta prohibited claims like "Zionists control the media" after determining the term was being used as a coded reference to Jewish people. He also stated, "For instance, we've heard from Jewish communities and others, in times of crisis, that they've had content removed when they were actually trying to speak out against atrocities."

Benjamin Good added, "Of course, enforcement is critical, but over-enforcement poses risk to the communities that we try to protect as well."