Meta Opts Out of MRC Brand Safety Audit

Facebook and Instagram parent Meta has withdrawn from brand safety auditing with the MRC, and consequently lost its accreditation for this aspect. It remains an MRC member with other accredited services. Other companies recently withdrawing from the audit process include GumGum and Snap.

The brand safety award lasted less than four months. The MRC decided in June that both social media feeds presented safe environments for advertisers' brands, simultaneously renewing an earlier award for brand safety of Facebook's in-stream video content. Meta's brand safety accreditation has now been cancelled after the social media giant announced last month it would opt out of the body's annual auditing program.

Quoted on www.exchangewire.com, Arielle Garcia, COO of watchdog group Check My Ads, stated: 'It is not at all surprising that [Meta] would no longer feel the need pursue brand safety accreditation - they likely see it as an unnecessary expense, and perhaps as a liability, given their evolving posture and policies relating to brand safety and content on its platforms.' A number of major social media firms have been relaxing their policing of content, citing a greater emphasis on 'free speech' and reflecting the political stance of the Trump administration.

MRC Executive Director George Ivie (pictured) told industry publication ADWEEK in a statement, 'As is our procedure when a service withdraws from audit, we informed our members, revoked accreditation, and removed Meta from our site as accredited.' A Meta spokesperson told the publication that the company 'heard from advertisers that they value validation of third-party and suitability metrics,' and 'as a result [has] withdrawn from this year's brand safety first-party audit and asked the MRC to prioritize a third-party brand safety audit.'

Meanwhile Meta remains a member of the MRC and continues its accreditation for a number of measurement categories, including display ad impression metrics, SIVT and video viewability. It is also continuing to work with the standards body on developing new standards for ad space auctions - all of which suggest that relations between the two are not breaking down.

The MRC has also recently withdrawn accreditation, for content-level brand safety from contextual ad intelligence platform GumGum, which also decided to discontinue audits; and denied an initial grant to Snap for the same reason. The news is confirmed in the Council's October listing of changes, which also revealed the MRC had granted accreditation to Walmart for a number of metrics and features of its Connect Sponsored Prodicts Services.

Web site: www.mediaratingcouncil.org .