“We’ve Had People Arrested”: Social Media Agency On Zuckerberg’s Wild West
“The stratosphere of social has changed; but the actual need for moderation hasn’t.”
Alice Cuffe speaks from experience. She’s the head of social media management at Social Element, an agency that was founded in the early ‘00s by Tamara Littleton after working at the BBC. “She saw the effect that the comment section had on the people, predominantly children, within those spheres, and started Social Element as a moderation company to go against that and create safe spaces.”
Just over 20 years on, Social Element’s work is more vital than ever. Donald Trump and his band of tech bros have set out to slash online safeguards and halt diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives under the questionable banner of free speech and meritocracy. A big hit came last month, when Mark Zuckerberg sat down to announce a series of Meta reforms. These included the end of its third-party fact-checking programme in favour of a community notes model and the lifting of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender – as an alarming example, its Hateful Conduct policy has been revised to allow “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation.” Concern amongst users spread rapidly, with TechCrunch reporting that Google searches around deleting or wiping Meta accounts spiked in the days following the statement.
For an agency like Social Element, whose mission is ‘Making Social Better’, it’s time for brands to think hard about how they’re showing up on these shifting platforms. “It’s now a really dangerous space for brands to be in – unless they’re comfortable adhering to that policy and that political leaning – because they are by default aligning themselves with it,” says Alice. “Whether quietly from a tone of voice perspective or very loudly within their creative, brands need to ensure that they’re saying what they want to say – not sitting under someone else's viewpoint.”
LBB’s Zara Naseer caught up with Alice in the aftermath of the Meta reforms to find out how brands can reassert their values and foster safe community engagement in an environment threatening to turn hostile.
Above: Alice Cuffe, head of social media management at Social Element
LBB> Social Element was founded around the ethos of keeping brands and people safe online. How did you respond to Meta’s recent decisions to scrap fact-checking and DE&I programmes?
Alice> Naturally, there will be an added layer of scepticism for brands and any audiences going into Meta in an age that deprioritises fact-checking.
But what's already interesting is not just the move away from fact-checking, it’s the very politicised move of their moderators to Texas to, in Zuckerberg’s words, “help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content.” We forget that these are not regulated companies, and the decisions they can make have a huge impact.
So it's a twofold update on the fact-checkers and the moderators, which we found firstly very concerning and also quite perplexing. This is literally what Social Element has been doing for 20 years plus, and it’s such an important part of what brands need. We’ve had people arrested, we've had mental health concerns dealt with, we have dived into the comment section for so many different things, and to relax all of that moderation puts the onus on the brands themselves, which means they have more work to do.
Meta may be thinking about using AI as a model of replacement for the human element; but something Social Element can attest to is that, whilst AI is an incredibly powerful tool within the moderation and fact-checking space, it does not replace the need for human presence, ever. It can track through a huge amount of comments to help the people working in that space, but the human element is absolutely paramount.
It's also interesting to create what we might think of as free speech, but is actually just unfiltered. It does not necessarily mean free and right, but it is a space in which hate speech and discrimination can exist. The elements and the spaces in which free speech can exist have legal implications as well, but certain rulings and laws that pertain to it do not apply on socials. These new developments will now implicate lawmaking and how governments will have to work across the world to do this.
LBB> Absolutely – it’s been framed as a move towards neutrality, despite having a very clear political leaning. We know what kind of speech they’re trying to free. Who do you think is going to be most affected by these developments?
Alice> It's everyone mentioned in their hateful conduct policy, which has now been revoked and adapted. If you take the guardrails away from how people speak about LGBTQ people, people of colour, women, immigrants, and every other protected group, they're the people who are affected, and that is a huge part of the population. Laws like the 2010 Equality Act, which legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and society, have not expanded to socials yet. It will be interesting to see how that shifts.
The GLAAD [the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organisation] president and CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis, made a really good point here, that “these changes will harm users and make Meta's platforms unsafe for everyone. Meta is now an anti-LGBTQ company.” That's a really big statement to put out globally. It’ll be interesting to see brands that have previously aligned with equality policies in their content either shift or double down. We would hope that people will double down in their actual content as well as their moderation, otherwise they'll be alienating a huge part of their population who already feel unsafe.
LBB> How can brands have an impact on these kinds of decisions? Do you have any examples of where this has been done effectively?
Alice> The first thing that came to my mind was X. When Elon Musk took over, you immediately saw that drop in ad revenue, as brands were in fear of what their content might be promoted alongside. Now Musk is suing food giants, Unilever, Mars, CVS, etc, on this collusion allegation, alongside trade associations like the World Federation of Advertisers, to claim that they had deprived the platform of billions of dollars of revenue. We also saw that in 2017 with YouTube when moderation was not done successfully enough and brands were promoted next to extremist content.
If you create an unsafe space for brands, they will move away. As soon as the money is withdrawn, it creates change. As basic as that seems, that's essentially how these platforms have to work. They are built to succeed on advertising revenue, but if people can’t successfully put their brand in the space because it’d be next to something that isn’t aligned with their values, you lose it.
LBB> In light of where culture is now, do you still feel that customers are looking for brands to actively take a social stance in this way?
Alice> Looking at data from GWI, from Q3 of 2024, 47% of UK customers and consumers believe that brands should be socially responsible, and whilst it looks like a small percentage, that’s 4% up year-on-year. We want to align with a brand that wants us and essentially represents our values.
To build that kind of community, brands need to have a united tone of voice to show up as who they are and what they stand for. It isn't just the role of a creator, and it isn't just the role of an influencer. It has to be the brand itself.
We are nothing without the community, and from a brand perspective, it informs every bit of content on social. You can no longer really put out a campaign if it doesn't align with the values of the people you want to speak to. So if they're not there because they feel alienated, you haven't got the basis or the richness that actually builds your content through connection. We lift people up through advertising on social, not just because it helps them, but because it helps the brand as well.
LBB> So if a brand wishes to withdraw its support from platforms that don’t align with its values, how can it still connect with its online communities?
Alice> For people like me, who've been in social media for years and years, we could never have imagined a point where we would actively encourage brands to move away from a platform that we previously loved, like Twitter. But for the past six months to a year, we have said to brands that we do not factor it into their publishing plans anymore. In the case of Meta, we might remain on there, but while fastidiously defending beliefs.
You might want to move to a more dark social point of view, broadcasting via WhatsApp or microcosms within Facebook that you can control. Closed group communities are where a huge amount of conversations are already happening, particularly for brands with superfans, or people who want in-depth conversations. Gen z to gen alpha are very much living within the dark social space as well. That isn't going to help you build your community outwards, though – it’s more about retaining audiences.
We also want to be able to create new spaces that are safe. We often see people moving to Telegram or RedNote very quickly, but that has a snap back effect, while places like Bluesky have shown that they can retain their audiences. Its user base has expanded over nine times in the last year, not just because it came from a development team within Twitter, but because they know what they're talking about, and people are maintaining their platforms.
It's good to be unsure of the future when it comes to social: it just means there's more creative movement, which is really exciting. If it means a safer space for more people by diversifying, then that's a good thing.
LBB> What steps has Social Element taken to help its clients make social media a better, safer space?
Alice> We don't want to become a place that challenges platforms; we want to work with them. It's an opportunity for us to give brands an answer on how to show up, setting clear standards for acceptable content and conduct that lets them take control of their online presence and lead by example, without waiting for the example to be set by the platform.
We've got over 20 years of experience in doing this very thing. We look at moderation from a proactive point of view as well as reactive to uphold the safe spaces that people want to create for their community. First and foremost, we look at creating ethical campaigns that ensure brand safety throughout, from the top line strategy to that last user comment. The through line now doesn't end with your paid, it ends with the very last full stop on that community content. That's where your campaigns live and die.
Within those community spaces, we look at fostering diverse voices and empathetic engagement, training people on how to speak to all different users. Training is massively important for showing up from a tone of voice perspective – if every single one of us doesn't know the tone voice of a brand, then we can't bring it to life across the board.
Crisis management is growing too. We have a sister company called Polpeo which does crisis simulations for brands, and we use that training for all of our teams as well so they aren’t phased in the case of a negative influx. The worst thing for us is when a brand wants to shut their comments off. One of our markers of success is keeping them open for a long period of time. That leads to a much richer space.
