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The Wellness Creator Podcast is your go-to source for expert insights and actionable tips in the evolving world of health, wellness, and spiritual-based business. Join us as we explore proven online growth strategies, chat about current trends, and interview fellow wellness creators who’ve managed to turn passion into profit by helping people live better, healthier lives.
Jeni Barcelos (00:01)
Welcome to the Wellness Creator podcast. In today's episode, we are talking about Meta's big censorship announcement that took place on January 7th, 2025 and how it impacts wellness creators. Woops, Sandy, this is a big one.
Sandy Connery (00:18)
I just fell out of bed when I heard it. Like I just could not believe I just couldn't I just I literally couldn't believe what he was saying and me for one I'm so Happy about that. I know not everyone is but I am thrilled that he's come out and said it that there was censorship that there were issues and we're making changes so
Yeah, so, but we can.
Jeni Barcelos (00:41)
Yeah, yeah.
This is an incredibly controversial topic and we really want this podcast episode to be about the impact to those of us in the health and wellness industry in particular and creators online who are using these platforms specifically to grow our audience for our business because health and wellness creators had a disproportionate impact, I think, due to censorship in the last five years.
So let's just go ahead and get into it, Sandy. So what Mark Zuckerberg talked about, which you just heard the first minute of like really a five or six minute video that Meta released on January 7th, is that they are retracting their content moderation policies. They are kind of cutting ties with the teams of people who have been creating and implementing those policies.
effectively creating a layer of censorship, whether you think that's good or bad, what we can get into for the last, really since 2016 is when they started those policies. 10, no, eight years. So seven, eight years, they've been actively censoring sort of an increasing capacity, the commentators, the comments and the...
the people who use Meta platform. So we're talking about Facebook, we're talking about Instagram, and we're talking about WhatsApp.
Sandy Connery (02:13)
Yeah. So he does say that it became too politically biased. The people that were doing the fact checker, fact checkers, which I thought was so interesting, right? Like they're not very good fact checkers if they are influenced by their political beliefs. And he does say like they're sort of loosening or widening their filters so that the regular common person, when they talk about
Jeni Barcelos (02:20)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sandy Connery (02:39)
I don't know, a vitamin or something that's helped them with their mental illness that they're not going to get censored and their posts won't disappear. Like it was just insane to me. So I a hundred percent am behind this and I think it's super exciting. think it's so interesting, Jenny, how he uses like, just like my friend, you know, Elon at X we're going to copy what he's done. And I, it just, it's also shocking to me, which I
100 % love the community. What is it called? Community notes on X. Like I think they're good. And I think it's based on that the majority of people who are using these platforms are not bad people, are not trying to spread lies or misinformation. I think majority are good, honest people trying to participate, but there's so like a few.
Jeni Barcelos (03:09)
community notes.
Sandy Connery (03:32)
bad actors out there who are responsible for all this nonsense that's been going on.
Jeni Barcelos (03:37)
Yeah, and just to kind of like summarize their main message, what Mark Zuckerberg said, and I really encourage you to go and listen to the full announcement. It's on Metta's website and their press releases. We will link to it in the show notes. It's worth five minutes of your time because it's such an important announcement affecting how billions of people in the world communicate with each other. And what he's essentially saying is they out of like goodwill and wanting to be ethical,
implemented these content moderation policies in 2016. 2016 was obviously a really pivotal year. It was the election where Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton. The world was in a very politically tumultuous place. think at least America was. That's my perspective. But I think the whole world felt the weight of that political decision. There was a lot of fear.
and talk about things like Russian interference in the US presidential election that year. And so there was like this huge push to implement content moderation. There were also like increasing stories about bots, you know, coming in and like really, I mean, there's a lot of evidence that there was profound misinformation on the platform, like that caused things like genocides and we don't want to take, you know, that all needs to be put in context. And I think
Sandy Connery (04:57)
Mm-hmm.
Jeni Barcelos (05:00)
You have to think about these platforms like Facebook, and I will work very hard to forgive Mark Zuckerberg for what has happened in the last eight years, but it's hard. But you have to think about the position that these tech founders and these tech companies have been in for really the first time in human history to sort of like have the dials and controls to sort of decide how people can communicate with each other.
at this scale. And I think that like we as humans are figuring this out, right? As a civilization. And I certainly, I think it's really worth paying attention to, especially if you're in the health and wellness field, because this will affect what you are allowed to say and how you are allowed to say it and communicate it to your audience.
Sandy Connery (05:43)
Yeah, you no longer need to speak in code or use like
Jeni Barcelos (05:46)
Well, we'll see,
right? We'll see how they actually implement community notes, but yes, I mean, that's the idea. Like if you have spent any time on Facebook in a Facebook group or, you know, following major wellness influencers on Instagram, you know that people use cupcakes for vaccines. They use the cupcake emoji for vaccines and they use like a horse for ivermectin and I'm sure those.
This video when it's on youtube this podcast is gonna have all kinds of warnings on it because I said those words out loud But like that's just the tip of the iceberg and I think we've all I don't know anyone in this industry has seen I have personally witnessed my own words disappearing as I post them right like and that is a very unsettling feeling um And so this is a really big deal
Sandy Connery (06:39)
Yeah, it's a huge deal, like such a huge deal.
Jeni Barcelos (06:40)
Yeah, so a huge deal. it also,
we're gonna now have to see like, how does, how, like we've seen how community notes deal with, you know, calls, like fake calls for genocidal violence that people think are real. We've seen that play out on X. I mean, so community notes is a different kind of content moderation system where,
Sandy Connery (06:59)
Let's explain community notes for those who don't spend any time on it.
Jeni Barcelos (07:07)
it's sort of like a collective way where people can fact check and it's not delegated to like an Ivy League university or a major research university or think tank that has a singular kind of political motivation and is funded by a certain group of people, right? Like that's been the real critique of meta is that those fact checking organizations
have bias baked into them because they are funded by certain organizations and individuals with a particular agenda. At least that is the claim. And so I'm sure to a degree that that's true, right? there's, that's true. You may agree with the values and judgments of those funders and organizers, but it's definitely biased. And so, you know, we've seen Mark Zuckerberg testify in front of Congress repeatedly about
Sandy Connery (07:44)
Yeah, sure.
Jeni Barcelos (08:00)
misinformation, disinformation, censorship. And I think like this was such a change in his demeanor. Like it's also worth pointing out Sandy because we are us, but like he looks like a different person. Can we just talk about that? He's like an he's like a cage fighter now and he's wearing a million dollar watch. That's one of the things that I saw somebody posted, at least like that's what I read. He's wearing like a t-shirt with a big old gold necklace.
Sandy Connery (08:13)
He does. He sounds like a different person. His voice, he's been... Yeah.
really? That's a million dollar watch?
Yeah.
Jeni Barcelos (08:30)
in a million dollar wristwatch in this video, which is like, and he is buff and he's got long hair. my God, it's so, he looks like a, you know, we've seen this like sort of weasely young nerdy man testifying before Congress for years and like, what the heck? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, that's right. They were gonna do an MMA fight or like honestly, but.
Sandy Connery (08:35)
And his hair is so long and curly, yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, he was ready to take on Elon! They were gonna fight!
But
just to, just to be clear, like for those people who haven't been on X, like that, those community notes or someone posts something and you as a person go, that's an old video. Or I can tell that that's been doctored or I don't, know, like this, whatever you can add your input. Right? Like this was shown three years ago and didn't happen yesterday. Like they're implying. And so the community, the people kind of chime in and go actually be careful of this. actually saw
Jeni Barcelos (09:05)
Yeah. Yeah. Here's the original. Yeah.
Sandy Connery (09:20)
something that was first like an ad selling something and it was like a little bit sketchy and someone was like, be careful of this. And here's what my experience was. And so it's like policed by the people. And, know, one could say that, you know, people could really be negative and take, you know, a company down, for example. It just doesn't seem to happen though. It's like we're adults and we can like read the information and decide what we want to believe or what.
we can go check further if we want, you know, like I just, I actually really liked that feature on X, I loved it. So the fact that he's basically copying Elon and bringing that in is, I think is fantastic.
Jeni Barcelos (10:02)
Yeah, I mean, I will just play devil's advocate. You know, you and I agree on a lot of things, Sandy, but just like we do know from, Francis Hogan's book, like there are people in other countries that get their news from Facebook. Right. And so I think the danger, and I'm sure that that's true for X too. And we can all go back and talk about, took a, I taught a course back when I was still teaching at a university about the impact of Twitter on Arab spring, like an
Sandy Connery (10:04)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Jeni Barcelos (10:31)
the political uprisings of Arab Spring, like it's a real thing. there are people in the world who get their news from these platforms. And I think that there is a real danger in like just believing everything that you read. So even with community notes and even with the content moderation policies that Facebook has been using for years and years, like it's still like, I mean, even newspapers, like there's, I just don't believe everything you read. And I think that, but there's people who do, and that's their only source of information about the world. Yeah.
Sandy Connery (10:31)
Hmm.
Yeah. And it's the only source of information because
Facebook won't like the charge to go on an internet browser and look anywhere else is exorbitant. So it's free to go on Facebook. So there's a whole other issue with that. Yeah.
Jeni Barcelos (11:03)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. there's, yep. So that is highly problematic. But I did
want to say, I found a post before we started recording, Sandy, about how well community notes have been used on X. And this is taken from Grok, which is X's AI arm. So, I mean, again, it could be, anything could be doctored or whatever, but this is what it said. So in one year,
Sandy Connery (11:18)
Mm-hmm.
Jeni Barcelos (11:29)
X has suspended 5.3 million accounts because of community notes and removed 10.6 million violating posts that violate their community standards. So that's like pretty substantial. And suspensions have tripled since the first half of 2022, I guess, when this started or when this started getting tracked. I would just say like, there is some data to support that this is an impactful way of
Sandy Connery (11:33)
Wow.
That is.
Jeni Barcelos (11:59)
policing misinformation or disinformation.
Sandy Connery (12:03)
So
in Mark's, I think this is actually the CEO that is sort of the post below this video. He says in December 2024, they removed millions of pieces of content every single day.
Jeni Barcelos (12:18)
Yeah. Yeah. And he says in that, in that clip that we just listened to at the beginning, that even if their algorithm is making a mistake, 1 % of the time, it's still like millions and millions and millions of mistakes. And people know it and feel it. Like if you say anything that is like within the health and wellness realm, there's a chance that you're going to get censored because this is the kind of stuff again, that gets sense that has historically gotten censored for whatever reason.
Sandy Connery (12:39)
Yep.
Jeni Barcelos (12:45)
And some people are going to say that it's because like the same people who fund a big pharma or who are shareholders in big pharma companies are the people who've been funding these misinformation entities and university groups, right? Like that's the, like in the wellness world, like that's the going theory is that like big pharma is essentially behind the censorship of wellness related content. So who knows? None of us are in those rooms.
Most likely if you're listening to this, you have no idea what's actually going on, just like we don't, but you know, we have our fears and suspicions.
Sandy Connery (13:20)
Yeah, and he did say, and I can't remember the exact words of the team, but he's moving his like ethics team. It's going to be out of Texas so that it's not all out of California as you were describing for the bias reason. So that's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeni Barcelos (13:28)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Biased. Yeah. So that's, that was one of the most shocking things that I heard yesterday. I
mean, that's a really like, just, just to say though, that these, these organizations that Metta was outsourcing to were also like, I know the University of Washington where I used to teach was, had one of these kind of organizations that was working with Facebook around misinformation. And then I think Stanford has an arm and
Sandy Connery (13:53)
Mm.
Anthony.
Jeni Barcelos (14:00)
So it wasn't just employees at Metta. It was also like interestingly being outsourced this kind of content policing and content moderation was being outsourced to these kind of university affiliated entities that if you've ever been around one of them, they're all funded by foundations and wealthy people. So it like lends itself to potentially to corruption because there's anyway, that's how those things work. Yeah.
Sandy Connery (14:19)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's bring
it back around to like the positive impact of this change. Like how will it help our listeners with their wellness business? What are the implications?
Jeni Barcelos (14:37)
Yeah. So,
one of the things that we were talking about in preparing for this episode is sort of like why this matters for wellness creators. And it's because a big part of why all of you have businesses, not all of you, but many of you is because you've had some kind of impact or transformation in your own life that you are then wanting to use as kind of the fuel and the, and the training to help you impact other people. Right.
you know, maybe not every single one of you, but many of you are in the line of work that you're in in the wellness world because you were personally impacted by some kind of illness, disease, affliction, trauma, whatever it may be. And you learned a strategy or two to overcome those things and create positive change. And you want to use that as fodder or, you know, as a way to help other people. Well, part of this sort of like censorship industrial complex really like prevented
you from doing that, like many of you from doing that. And so we're well aware of that. We've had lots of conversations with our clients and our coaching programs over the years about this stuff. And you, even when you're sharing your own experience, that was often something that you would get penalized for. Maybe you lose your Instagram account for certainly have your Facebook ads shut off for. So that is a huge, that it will be really interesting to see how this particular aspect plays out moving forward.
because especially if it's around anything related to alternative medicine, alternative healing, herbalism, like anything that is outside of like the sort of traditional, yeah, pharmaceutical kind of like condoned solutions. And then even then, you know, talking about any kind of cure or healing or whatever, there's all these words that you can't say, right? So it'll be interesting to see if this shifts. Cause we see, I see those things all the time on X.
Sandy Connery (16:15)
Big Pharma,
Jeni Barcelos (16:34)
I spent a fair amount of time on that platform and people can say those words. So like you couldn't say it on Facebook. And I've talked about it before, Sandy, with you in other podcasts, we've recorded that like part of why I wanted to get off of Instagram and why I have actively despised meta in recent years and Facebook in particular is because I was actively censored from what I was saying in long COVID groups, which really were like about vitamins.
Sandy Connery (16:38)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Jeni Barcelos (17:02)
and
protocols, like people were unable to share, like entire groups would be shut down. They would just be gone the next day. I had the experience of like typing a sentence and posting it and the sentence was gone within 30 seconds, like just mysteriously vanished. Like that kind of stuff is very unsettling. So as a wellness practitioner, healer, know, creator who is probably talking about some of these things, you are maybe now going to be able to tell your story publicly.
Sandy Connery (17:30)
Yeah. And I wonder how many
of the listeners like who have realized that they've been sort of shut down and muted and have to be careful and they just think that's normal. And like how, to me, it's so exciting that they can have these more open, honest, real conversations about their experience. You know, as you say, typically it's going to be more in the alternative health world. Like let's get the truth out there. And again, I think that we're adults and we can like hear it and go, I don't agree with any of that. And that's fine. Right. But I don't need meta.
Jeni Barcelos (17:38)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sandy Connery (17:59)
to be like censoring that, that you shouldn't listen to that, right? Like more.
Jeni Barcelos (18:00)
Tell me. Right, right. Yeah,
I think that that's gonna be the long-term story that comes out of these years is that none of us really know everything. mean, okay, I just wanna say this. Science is a process, not an outcome. And so if you are trying to control what information is available to people because certain words cannot be spoken,
Sandy Connery (18:08)
Mm-hmm.
Jeni Barcelos (18:27)
You're like, it's already so Orwellian and you just, there's no entity on the planet that I am aware of that knows the answers to all the questions of how to heal all the people, right? So it's like, it's such a disservice to take options away from people who are wanting to learn. And I am a huge advocate and I'll just say this, because I think this relates to a lot of you and your businesses, especially those of you that are health coaches or you do any kind of like protocols or cleanses or whatever.
are doing work that is not mainstream condoned by Big Pharma and therefore you have to just refrain from talking about it in a way that's meaningful. And I get that you can't, you know, I get that like, just like you can't yell fire in a movie theater when there's no fire, like, you know, you don't want to overhype a claim, but I know so many of you from working with you over the years.
And that's not how you all think and talk, right? You're like, this is my story, this worked for me, I wanna let you know about it. this way of doing Pilates or this way of eating or whatever really helped me in my body, here's what it is, maybe it will help you, maybe it won't. And that's how most people in wellness are. And to not have been able to say those things out loud in the public marketplace of our time has been really damaging to people and their businesses. And so...
Sandy Connery (19:44)
Yeah.
Yeah,
it's like they're trying to help people with thyroid issues not take down the government. Like it's just, here's a few more options, you know, here's some oils, here's some whatever that might help. And again, I just rely on the intelligence of all of us to like read the information to decide for ourselves, but...
Jeni Barcelos (19:57)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Yeah,
and you're going to get community noted, right? If you're selling snake oil, you're going to get community noted. And that's what happens, I mean, to a degree on X. It's like, doesn't always happen. But I also think like that's we're all like we're adults. And so we need to be able to like look at information and think and make decisions. so anyway, you know, this if we were centered around geopolitical upheaval, Sandy, you and I maybe would be having a different conversation about this, but we see the world.
Sandy Connery (20:11)
Yeah, there'll be a note.
Jeni Barcelos (20:38)
through the lens of wellness, because that's the world we live and work in. And so that's the angle that we're going to bring to this analysis of this new story.
Sandy Connery (20:46)
Yeah, and
the only really uncertainty is like timing, because Mark in that video talks about like these are complex systems and it's going to take a little bit for us to try and, you know, improve this and get this right. So I really don't know if it's like weeks, months, a year, like what that will be, but we'll certainly follow along with any other updates with him. But hopefully it's sooner and later.
Jeni Barcelos (21:04)
Yeah. Yes. Yes. So just, and
that I think, yeah, that's a great point just to follow the story. If you're in this industry, I think you're going to see the way people talk about wellness on the internet change. I mean, it's going to go back to pre 2016. If for those of you that were spending time online back then to in the blogosphere, like on, you know, in kind of like chat rooms and forums. And that was a really cool time to be on the internet. Honestly, like it was really fun.
Sandy Connery (21:19)
I hope so.
Yeah, yeah, is discovery,
yeah.
Jeni Barcelos (21:33)
So there was a lot of like sharing. and I just also wanna say like patient advocacy and like people who, this is one of those places for you to think about as a business opportunity. Facebook groups have been the primary place for like patient advocacy communities or communities, like community advocacy groups where people are all kind of suffering through the same thing. You know, whether it's like postpartum depression or.
Whatever, whatever affliction it may be, Facebook groups have been the home on the internet for those communities by and large. So I just think about, we have a community built into Marvelous, and part of why we built communities is so that you can avoid censorship and talk about what you want. So thinking about though, how can you use this idea of community with these changes to start to build an audience or
grow your audience even bigger because maybe this is gonna be an option once again.
Sandy Connery (22:34)
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think the question I would love to ask our listeners is like, would you do or who would you be or what would you say if you didn't have the fear of being shadow banned or your account being shut down suddenly? Like you've seen so many of your colleagues, you know, that's happened. Like just imagine what you can be as a leader in this space and as a thinker, a content creator, if you just don't have to be so careful that you might like lose everything overnight. Like that is exciting.
Jeni Barcelos (23:02)
Yeah.
Yeah. And I mean, I love the idea that you brought up shadow banning because that's where it's shown up a lot too. Like it's not always explicit that your content was taken down or that your account was closed. Sometimes it's just that no one can see what you post anymore. So that's a really good point. And I also think like just jumping to YouTube for a second, because I think that we're going to hear news from them soon. Like I think that's the big elephant in the room now is like YouTube.
Sandy Connery (23:11)
Right. People are so confused. Like, what? Yeah.
Yeah, I think, I hope. I hope.
Jeni Barcelos (23:31)
content demonetization related in this space. So it'll be really interesting to see if Google now starts to shift its own policies, because I think they were working with the same think tanks and organizations that Metta was working. It's like the sort of the same people who were, and some of it was being pushed by the federal government in the United States, and I don't know where else. And so those things are changing. And so it'll be really interesting to see like beyond Metta, how these changes take place.
Sandy Connery (23:36)
they follow.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Yeah, because I
already know. thinking, you mentioned Ivermectin, and I don't know if Google's going let us play this on YouTube, right?
Jeni Barcelos (24:05)
They'll
probably, yeah, this, well, it definitely wouldn't be monetized if we were monetized and it may, and it definitely will have a warning about C-O-V-I-D. Let's see, I didn't say the word out loud. Let's see if we get a little warning when you post this. that's my suspicion, but yeah, it might get taken down also, or we might get a warning. So, I mean, part of this is just the reality of the world that we're in, but we should try, you know, you and I left Instagram, Sandy, largely because of the censorship.
Sandy Connery (24:16)
Yeah.
Jeni Barcelos (24:34)
And not even that we were being censored, but just the observation of other people being censored was so troubling to us. It was so disgusting that for things that were really absurd. yeah, yeah. Like naturopaths, yeah. Yeah.
Sandy Connery (24:38)
Yeah, other people. hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. There's so many doctors I follow who lost their accounts and I see them posting now on Instagram. like, my God, I'll hopefully I won't ever have this happen again. And like,
just they're just so confused as like they're talking about iodine or something and they're like gone, you know, what? So anyway, it's very, yeah, that's crazy.
Jeni Barcelos (24:58)
Yeah, yeah. then it's yes. Yeah, I know. Or like red light therapy or something and you get your account
shut down. It's crazy. So yeah.
Sandy Connery (25:07)
my God. Yeah, that is insane. Okay, so
story is evolving. We'll keep you posted, but definitely encourage everyone to head over that link and watch the whole video with Mark, Mark, like he's my friend, Mark Zuckerberg. And yeah, we'll, we'll keep pushing the boundaries with this and see what we can post on Google.
Jeni Barcelos (25:25)
Yeah, and we'll keep you updated too, as obviously we're following these kinds of stories. And if anything additionally exciting happens in this space, we'll be sure to record another episode in the future. And just, yeah, I just encourage all of you to, again, go watch that five minute video and look at some of the other links that we share of analysis that people are doing on this and just like, this is a major shift for our industry on the internet. So just please pay attention.
Let us know how it affects you and we'll just continue the conversation.
Sandy Connery (25:59)
All right, thanks Jenny. Thanks everyone.
Jeni Barcelos (26:01)
Thank you, Sandy. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you next time.