Meta, Musk and the imminent death of brand safety

It’s tempting to frame Meta and Elon Musk for killing brand safety. Meta’s recent decision to suspend fact-checking in the US and Musk’s turbulent stewardship of X (formerly Twitter)—alongside his lawsuit against GARM—have only made the risks of advertising on social platforms clearer. But the reality is that brand safety’s decline has been a slow burn, long in the making. These developments just bring it into sharper focus.

The end of an era: The decline of brand safety

For years, the concept of brand safety provided a comfort blanket for advertisers. But the traditional tools of the trade, like keyword blocklists, have proven increasingly unfit for purpose in a world where nuance matters. The removal of fact-checking by Meta highlights just how fragile social platforms are. Musk’s X, meanwhile, has seen a surge in unmoderated, illegal content, challenging advertisers to navigate an increasingly polarised digital landscape. The burden is falling on advertisers to assess and mitigate risks—an impossible task given the scale and speed of content proliferation. As a result, the very notion of brand safety on social platforms has begun to feel like an illusion, a promise that technology struggles to keep.

On the open web, the picture has been different but no less flawed. The reliance on sweeping blocklists has, paradoxically, endangered the very environments advertisers seek for safety. News publishers, in particular, have been hit hard by overzealous keyword exclusions. Vital journalism on politics and social issues can be blocked unnecessarily, alongside a broad range of other quality content that might just contain a single word like ‘terror’, ‘shoot’, ‘Paris’, or ‘nude’. This is starving quality journalism of advertising revenue and brands, too, lose out on opportunities to align with credible, impactful content—all in the name of safety.

Social platforms versus the open web: A new frontier

While social platforms have been the poster children of brand safety’s failures, the open web presents an opportunity for a reset. High-quality publisher environments offer controlled, credible spaces—where content is created by professionals, not users. But for brands to benefit, they must ditch outdated safety tools and embrace a more nuanced approach.

This is where brand safety shifts to brand suitability. Unlike the blunt instrument of keyword blocklists, brand suitability leverages sophisticated contextual tools to evaluate content as a human would, only much more effectively and at scale. A news article on politics, for instance, could be deemed suitable for a financial services brand, while a human tragedy would be flagged as unsuitable for all—not simply because it contains a certain keyword, but because the context and tone are inappropriate for advertising around.

This transition to suitability is not just a technological evolution; it’s a cultural shift. A recent poll run by a respected industry commentator, AdTechGod, explored the topic of brand safety and revealed that “75% of those surveyed either advocated refining keyword lists or limiting blocking to only the most harmful words”. The message is clear: advertisers want better tools, not blanket bans.

Ushering in the suitability era

The suitability era is already taking shape. Advertisers are beginning to understand that aligning with suitable content doesn’t just protect their brand—it also builds trust and showcases brand values, while unlocking ad opportunities once lost to outdated blocklists. 

A pharmaceutical brand from Mantis' network has recently eased its restrictions, successfully exploring ways to advertise responsibly in news environments, which blocklists previously prevented. This shift was driven by data—and by technology that allowed the brand to assess content at a granular level, with precision and nuance.

This is not to suggest that safety concerns should be ignored; rather, they should be integrated into a more comprehensive framework that prioritises brand suitability and provides new opportunities to engage audiences in meaningful contexts. Publishers, in turn, can unlock inventory previously deemed untouchable to gain ad revenue that sustains quality journalism; which is all the more essential in a future free of fact-checking on social platforms. 

The road ahead: Disruption with purpose

The era of brand safety, as we knew it, is over. But what comes next is not a void, it’s an opportunity for advertisers and publishers to collaborate and move past the rigid, one-size-fits-all solutions of the past and embrace a future that prioritises suitability, context, and mutual benefit. This is a disruption worth celebrating for its potential to positively reshape the digital advertising landscape.

Meta and Musk may have accelerated the conversation, but the future was always heading in this direction. It’s now time for the industry to catch up.

Fiona Salmon is managing director at Mantis